


Enough, Enough

by eggstasy, saltsanford



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Blood and Gore, Gen, RvB Angst War, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2017-06-13
Packaged: 2018-06-03 21:44:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 46,403
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6627661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/saltsanford/pseuds/saltsanford
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The mission is a disaster, of fucking course, because they hadn’t had enough of those in recent years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The firefight is loud and hot and all Tucker can think is, _Carolina’s lost her goddamn mind._

He thinks it dully, idly, as he drops to his belly in the dirt and fires off several rounds towards where Charon’s forces are returning fire with equal fervor _: Carolina’s lost it. Fucking lost her marbles. All over the goddamn place._

Somehow or another, Carolina had gotten herself put in charge of mission assignments. Tucker’s not quite sure how she managed to swing that with Kimball and Doyle, only that she hadn’t been amused in the slightest when he’d made a joke about “sleeping her way to the top.” He’d paid dearly for that moment of fun, and he wonders if that’s the reason why she’s apparently punishing him on every goddamn mission he gets sent out on.

Because there’s no way this is a coincidence. He’d tested it out once, pulled a whole bunch of switch-a-roos with some of the other soldiers and managed to get himself of Team C instead of Team A or whatever the fuck the teams were that day—letters, or flowers, or animals; really, who came up with this shit? Caboose, probably—and then, speak of the devil, he’d turned around and _there was Caboose_ , standing bold as brass in the Pelican next to him.

_Again._

“Caboose, you’re on the wrong ship,” he’d said sharply. “You’re on Team A. This is Team C.”

“Um, no Tucker,” Caboose had said, in that insufferable, fake-patient voice that he just _knew_ drove Tucker up the wall, “I am on Team C. Carolina always paints my team name on my arm, and Carolina is always right, and my arm says Team C, so that is the team that I am on.”

And he’d thrust his arm approximately two centimeters in front of Tucker’s face. There it was, alright: Team C.

“Maybe you are on the wrong team, Tucker,” Caboose had said before breezing past him to sit with the rest of their squad, all of whom couldn’t have been happier to see him. Tucker could only stare as half the cadets clambered out of their seats to wring Caboose’s hand or pat him on the back and Christ, had he and Palamo just exchanged a _chest bump?_ They had. They so had, and Tucker was so done with this mission, and this day, and this fucking army.

The mission was a success, and okay, watching Caboose kick Felix so hard that he’d literally gone airborne was pretty great, but Tucker spent half of it having a heart attack. Just like he does with _every_ mission Caboose is on. Caboose’s radio voice is ear-piercing, and he has the most obnoxious habit of standing practically on top of Tucker when things get tense, and he refuses to wait for cover fire when he sees a squad member in danger. It’s _ridiculous._ It’s unsafe. It’s—

“—completely unfair. I know what you’re doing, Carolina.”

Carolina gives him her best impassive helmet tilt. “And what am I doing, Captain Tucker?”

“Don’t give me that bullshit,” he hisses. “You keep pairing me up with Caboose on missions. Caboose! Why?”

She makes a big show out of pretending to think about it. “Hmm. The two of you have become quite the team, haven’t you?”

“What—are you kidding me?! No we haven’t! I spend the entire mission yelling at him, and he spends the entire mission trying to drive me nuts! You’re doing this on purpose!"

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she says airily. 

“C’mon, I even tried to switch teams yesterday and we still ended up on the same squad!”

“It’s almost like it’s fate,” she says, and Tucker does not miss, nor does he appreciate, the barely concealed laughter in her voice. “And you can’t switch squads, Tucker, I assign them the way I do for a reason.”

“A-ha! So you are pairing us up! Is this because I made that threesome comment about you and Kimball and Doyle? Because like, I wasn’t trying to insult you, I think it’s pretty genius, not to mention hot—”

“Tucker, I do have important things to do, so if you’re finished whining—”

“Can’t you pair me up with Wash or something?” he asks desperately, and she gives him a look.

“Tucker, you and Wash go out on missions together _all the time_. He’s usually _with_ you and Caboose, so I don’t know what you’re complaining about.”

Which, okay, is true, but Wash is usually off skulking around and being a general badass while Tucker has to babysit Caboose.  Which is ridiculous, and unsafe, and unfair, because when Wash skulks by himself he usually strolls back with blood all over his leg or arm or fucking  _head_  and a “it’s nothing Tucker,” AND because it means that  _Tucker has to babysit Caboose_. It’s the definition of a lose-lose situation.

“But why?” he asks, again, and Carolina folds her arms over her chest.

“Because Caboose trusts you. He’s much calmer and more productive when he’s on a mission with you.”

Tucker stares at her and waits for the punchline. It doesn’t come. “Are you fucking kidding me? Jesus Christ, if that’s him being calm and productive, can I buy front row tickets for one of his other missions?”

“That’s not funny, Tucker,” Carolina snaps. “Look, Caboose is a good soldier, when he’s…focused. He’s incredibly strong, and he doesn’t show fear in quite the same way as other people do—it keeps the cadets calm. They love him.”

Which is also true. Everyone on Chorus fucking _adores_ Caboose. People are lining up to be on his squad. “I’m just—look, we don’t work well together.”

The silence stretches on and on before Carolina unfolds her arms. Apparently, now _she’s_ the one waiting for the punchline. “You’re joking, right?”

“Uh, no?”

“Tucker,” she sighs, and to his confusion, pulls out a datapad. She fiddles with it for so long that Tucker starts to get slightly offended.

“Okay, can you maybe check Basebook later, I’m trying to have a conversation here—”

“Look,” she says, and holds the datapad out to him. “It’s all the missions and supply runs you’ve done with Caboose.”

He takes the datapad grudgingly and scrolls through the list. _Mission success. Mission success. Mission success—_

“Okay, okay,” he grumps. “But this is like, a seriously oversimplified version of things, I mean, look.” He gestures at a mission dated two weeks ago. “What you _don’t_ know is that on this mission, Caboose took off his helmet because it was raining and he wanted to feel the water. In a _firefight._ And on _this_ mission, he charged out into the middle of an open field to bodily drag three cadets out of a hot zone even though I _didn’t have cover fire ready yet_. And on this—”

Which is when Church finally pops up over Carolina’s shoulder and says, “Jesus fucking _Christ,_ Tucker, if I have to listen to you whine for one more goddamn second I will make it my personal mission to have Caboose assigned as your _roommate._ ”

Tucker narrows his eyes. “You can’t do that.”

“Wanna find out? Gonna be awfully difficult to find alone time if you and Caboose are bunk buddies.”

They glare at each other before Tucker concedes. “Fine. Fine. But this—” he thrusts the datapad back at Carolina. “Isn’t over, okay?”

“While I have you here,” Carolina says. “I need you to go on a supply run tomorrow. It’s been pretty hot on the streets lately, so there’s seven of you going.”

He looks at her suspiciously as she transfers the squad line-up to his HUD. Wash. Palomo. Bitters. Johnson. Valasquez.

And fucking _Caboose._

* * *

 

  _Lost. Her. Mind_ , Tucker thinks again, as the rat-tat-tat of machine gun fire grows louder and louder.

The mission is a disaster, of fucking _course,_ because they hadn’t had enough of those in recent years. They’d been hurrying down the back alleyways of Armonia towards one of the supermarkets when there’d suddenly been gunfire _everywhere._ There had been just enough time to scatter and check in on the radio that yes, they were all alive, before they got right to work on returning fire. Tucker hadn’t been surprised in the slightest when he’d flattened his back to the nearest building and turned to see Caboose on his right.

It’s not so bad, at the moment, Tucker thinks. Freckles is pretty useful in these type of situations, even though it’s completely unnecessary for Caboose to let out a fucking battle cry whenever Freckles unloads another clip. “Jesus, Caboose!” he hollers over their private channel the fifth time this happens. “Would you shut up already?”

Caboose does not, in fact, shut up, but Tucker is granted a momentary distraction from all the yelling when Valasquez’s voice comes over their team radio, deadly calm as always. “Captains Tucker and Caboose. There are five hostiles making their way to your quadrant. You need to move out.”

“Fucking fuck,” Tucker mutters, then squints up at the sky. “Wait, how do you know that?”

“I’m up on the roof of the megaplex. I have visual on all forces.”

“How did you—”

“Captain Tucker _, get Caboose and find a new position_.”

Wash’s voice is even calmer and flatter than Valasquez’s, but Tucker knows that he only gets called Captain when Wash is either stressed or pissed. Right now, it’s probably a little bit of both. Tucker makes his voice deliberately breezy and just a bit whiny when he responds. “Alriiiiiiight, we’re going, jeez.”

He wiggles out from underneath the overturned car he’d been shooting from and turns to Caboose, who’s got his back to Tucker and is shooting enthusiastically at the forces a few streets over. “Caboose, c’mon, we gotta move.”

“Okay!” Caboose yells as he whips around, _while Freckles is still firing_. The gun, thank god, ceases its auto fire just before the muzzle sweeps across where Tucker is standing.

“Jesus, Caboose! Be careful!”

Caboose couldn’t be less phased. “Freckles knows what he is doing, Tucker—”

“That doesn’t mean that you can go swinging him around like that!”

“Freckles is very smart-”

“Freckles is a _gun!_ ”

“Artificial Intelligence Program NT-7395, designation Freckles, will only emit hostile rounds in the presence of hostile forces,” says Freckles, and nope, Tucker is not going there; he is not getting in an argument with Caboose’s pet gun _again_.

“If you can’t be more careful, I’m carrying that thing for you,” Tucker snaps.

Caboose clutches the gun to his chest as if it’s a fluffy teddy bear. “Freckles is not a thing, Tucker. You’re being very mean.”

Oh, great. Teary Caboose has entered the scene. Probably stressed from all the fighting. Tucker will never understand how loud noises upset Caboose when Caboose himself is the loudest noise of them all. “Let’s just go,” he says, and starts inching out of their cover. They make it several rounds over before a sniper from god knows where starts shooting at them, and Tucker barely has time to pull Caboose into a doorway alcove before Valasquez says, “got ‘im, you’re clear.”

“Tucker, Caboose, your area is too hot. I want you two to come to my position,” says Wash over the radio. “Three blocks west. I have solid cover from here.”

“We are coming, Agent Washington,” says Caboose, and he starts marching forward immediately at that because he will march straight through the gates of _hell_ if Wash asks him to and says he can bring Freckles. Tucker rolls his eyes and follows.

It’s not exactly smooth sailing. The gunfire seems to be getting thicker, and Tucker is certain that the opposing forces are multiplying. He’s constantly pulling Caboose out of the way, and when a grenade drops at their feet he has just enough time to think _oh, shit—_

But Caboose kicks it so hard that it sails through an open window ten stories up and explodes inside the abandoned building before Tucker quite has time to process what happened. “Huh,” he says. “Goddamn. Nice, Caboose.”

“It is like playing soccer,” Caboose says serenely, and Tucker thinks that Wash might be onto something with the whole analogy thing after all.

They make another half block west before Tucker stops dead, noticing for the first time that Caboose is walking slightly hunched over. He’s trying to be subtle about it, but he’s got his hand pressed up to his abdomen and that looks like— “Holy shit, are you bleeding?”

“No,” says Caboose. “I am not bleeding, Tucker.”

Tucker marches forward, dragging Caboose’s hand away from his stomach. “What the fuck, Caboose! Why didn’t you say anything?”

Caboose shifts around guiltily. “Well, um, there was a lot of noise, and then a lot of yelling, and then you were yelling, and I—”

“Oh, my god. Just sit down before you tear something.”

Fuck. Wash is going to kill him. He pings Wash on their shared Blue Team frequency before he loses his nerve and blurts, “don’t freak out.”

“Tucker,” Wash snaps, “how many times do I have to tell you about the protocol regarding proper use of opening and closing a comm fr—”

“Caboose got shot.” Tucker winches a little at the dead silence that follows. “He’s fine though! He’s just, uh…”

He glances over at Caboose, who has finally sat down and is leaning against the wall of a building, a little too still for Tucker’s liking. “Caboose,” he says sharply, then sighs in relief when Caboose turns to him attentively. “Yeah, he’s fine.”

“Tucker, what the hell is going on?” Wash asks, his words tight and clipped. “ _Where_ is he shot? Where are you guys?”

Tucker crouches down next to Caboose. “In the abdomen. Don’t freak out, though! I can use my bio…fuck.”

“What? _What?_ ”

“I’m out of biofoam.” He puts his hand uselessly on top of Caboose’s to help stem the blood flow, which, he notes alarmingly, isn’t slowing down. “Okay, Wash, you need to get here yesterday—”

Tucker’s panic instantly levels out Wash’s voice. “I’m on my way. Keep pressure on the wound and try not to move. Send me your exact coordinates.”

Tucker complies. “We’re in the alleyway behind that dumb pink house,” he says, and Wash acknowledges before taking off. “Don’t do anything stupid coming over here, we’re fine.”

He turns his attention to Caboose, shaking the empty biofoam canister uselessly. They were so low on field medical supplies that it was ridiculous. He’d been rationing this can of biofoam for weeks, and what little he’d had left he’d used on himself at the beginning of the mission. A bullet had just barely grazed his leg—nothing serious, but it wouldn’t stop bleeding. He’d used just a smear of the foam to seal it off, and now feels like a complete fucking asshole.

He startles when something _thunks_ against his helmet before realizing that it’s only Caboose, his head lolling to the side. “Hey hey hey, Caboose. Caboose! You gotta stay awake, okay?”

“It is very warm, and I am very sleepy,” Caboose mumbles, the side of his helmet still resting heavily on Tucker’s. Tucker uses his free hand to gently push Caboose’s head away, knocking on the side of his visor. “Caboose! It’s not fucking naptime yet!”

“You are yelling very loudly, Tucker,” says Caboose, but he sounds a bit more awake.

“Caboose, you’re _really_ not one to talk about people being too loud.”

A sudden noise has Tucker whirling around with his gun up. Caboose really wakes up at that, his hands pawing at Tucker’s arm and getting blood all over him. “Tucker! Where are you going? Are you going somewhere? I want to come with you, I don’t want to stay here by myself—”

“Caboose, keep pressure on that wound!” He maneuvers Caboose’s hands back so they’re pressing into his stomach once more. “I’m not going anywhere, alright? I just...thought I heard something.”

“That’s because you did,” comes the startling answer, and as soon as Tucker spins towards that voice, _that voice,_ all hell breaks loose. He half-crouches in front of Caboose, but he can’t quite see, can’t quite get the right angle to return fire. The bullets seem to be deliberately just missing them, but there’s a particularly obnoxious shooter who keeps striking the wall far too close to where Caboose is propped up. Tucker inches just far enough away to lean around the corner and take him out, and when he turns back around, there’s fucking Felix with a gun pressed into the side of Caboose’s helmet.

Two seconds. _Two seconds_ he had his back turned and this fucking asshole drops out of the goddamned sky. Tucker is instantly and spectacularly furious with himself for making what had to be the world’s stupidest snap decision, to step away from Caboose even for a _moment._ “Let him go.”

Felix laughs. “Wow, I’m impressed, Tucker. That was—that was very dramatic. Looks like someone’s been spending a lot of time with Agent Washington.” Felix pulls something out from behind his back, and Tucker’s brain registers only more orange before he realizes just what he’s looking at: a fucking future cube. A future cube that Tucker himself is out of range of, which only means—

“Don’t,” he says before he can stop himself.

He can’t see Felix’s face, but he can perfectly imagine the stupid, smug expression he’s wearing. “I promise you, the last thing I want is to spend any more time than necessary with the big blue idiot here. But, you know, you’re all becoming a _real_ nuisance these days. I can’t help but think you’ll all become a lot more cooperative if he and I spend some…quality time together.”

Tucker’s stomach swoops sickeningly at that. Caboose hasn’t said anything ridiculous yet, and Freckles is still and silent in his lap, which can only mean that Caboose is erring on the dangerous side of unconsciousness. _Fuck._ Tucker braces himself and opens up Blue Team’s radio. “Wash, Felix is here and he’s got a gun on Caboose, and he’s got a fucking future cube.”

Wash is silent for the briefest of seconds before his voice comes back stoic and unflinching. “Stall him. I’ll be right there.”

And Tucker knows that voice, that _I’ll be right there_ , and he knows without a doubt in his mind what Wash is about to do. Something stupidly heroic, and self-sacrificial, and nope, there is just about no way in hell that Tucker is going to let him do it.

_Not this time, Wash._

“Hey, asshole,” he snaps, turning his attention to Felix once more. “Let him go and I’ll come with you.”

Felix is rolling his eyes; Tucker can just tell. “Oh, what, and you expect me to believe that? You’re just gonna come quietly?”

“No, you’re gonna come quietly over _here_. I’m out of range of your stupid future cubes, aren’t I? You leave now, you get Caboose, but you don’t get me, or the sword.”

Felix tilts his head at that, considering, which is of course when Caboose starts to stir, fumbling weakly with Freckles. There’s a horrifying, heart-stopping moment where Tucker is sure that Felix is going to shoot Caboose right in the head, but all he does is aim a kick at Freckles that sends the gun spiraling away and smacking into the adjacent building.

Which might actually be worse, because Caboose starts trying to wrest Felix’s gun out of his hands, and his voice is woozy and thick with what’s probably tears. “I don’t like your plan, Tucker—”

Felix fires a warning shot _way_ too close to Caboose’s head. Caboose’s hands fly up to the sides of his helmet, pressing against the auditory filters, and Wash’s shout of _NO!_ over the radio is so dramatic that Tucker thinks, a little hysterically, that Felix might have a point about him having the melodrama on fucking lock. It’s better to think of Wash’s tone as dramatic as opposed to terrified or anguished, because Tucker _can’t_ , because it rips him up inside to hear Wash like that, and he has to focus on this, here, _now_ , on Caboose shaking with his hands pressed tight to his ears and fucking Felix with a goddamn _gun_ jammed up under his teammate’s chin.

Tucker logs on to Blue Team Radio long enough to cut off Wash’s frantic line of questioning—w _e’re fine! It was a warning shot, we’re fine!—_ before turning his attention to Felix. “See? I’m telling you, he’ll make the worst prisoner ever.” It’s a struggle to keep his voice calm and light, but he forces each word out. “He literally will not shut the fuck up, I promise you. Your bosses aren’t gonna be too impressed with your field work if you stroll back and all you’ve got is Caboose. Me, however—”

“Oh, well, seems like you think you’re pretty goddamn important, don’t you?”

“Dude, come on. I’m like, the fucking chosen one.”

Felix glances between him and Caboose, considering, and Wash reopens their radio channel. “Tucker! What’s going on? Why did you close our connection? I’m almost there, just—”

“I’ve got this under control, Wash,” Tucker says, determined, and then to Felix: “come and get me, asshole.”

And with a last glance at Caboose, Felix does. Tucker’s chest only starts to loosen once the gun is completely off Caboose—which is good, which is what matters. Felix inches over slowly, slowly, and Wash’s voice is increasingly panicked in Tucker’s ear: _Tucker, no, no, what are you doing? No, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare, I’ll be right there, I’ll be—_

“He’s not taking Caboose. Or you,” Tucker says, and he tries his best to adopt Wash’s stupid trademark no-nonsense, self-sacrificial tone. “I got this. I’ll be okay.”

_“Tucker, no!”_

Wash’s voice is the last thing he hears before the future cube takes him and Felix far, far out of range, and Caboose lunging weakly towards them is the last thing he sees, and Tucker thinks, _they’re safe, they’re safe,_ and it’s enough.

It’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LET'S PLAY A GAME CALLED 'HOW MANY BLUE TEAM FEELS CAN I CRAM IN ONE FIC?!'
> 
> ahem
> 
> This was a prompt for the angst war from my bud @[egg](http://archiveofourown.org/users/eggstasy/pseuds/eggstasy), who requested blue team and the line "holy shit, are you bleeding?" WHICH I WAS ALL TOO HAPPY TO FILL BECAUSE EGG AND BECAUSE BLUE TEAM


	2. Chapter 2

“My name is Agent Washington.”

Wash knows he’s in trouble. He knows when the ground beneath his feet begins to hum with phantom artificial gravity generators that he’s in trouble. Episodes always start with little things like that: tiny, out-of-place sensory input that infects his waking mind and makes him question whether or not he’s really awake. It’s his brain self-sabotaging, looking into itself and freaking the fuck out for lack of any other way to express just how _wrong_ he feels.

_I’m sorry, Alpha. The mission was unsuccessful. …Agents North and South Dakota have been compromised._

“My _name_ is- Agent Washington.”

He has coping mechanisms, things he can do. He counts. He touches his fingertips to his thumbs, back and forth, rhythmic. Sometimes he cleans his weapons, every last one of them, lays them out in a row and works across like on an assembly line. He knows these things make him look crazy but he’s gotten tired of reassuring other people, reassuring himself that these are the things that _stave off_ the crazy. The people who matter already know.

_We’ve received a message regarding the status of the captured Agents. It may be…difficult for you to watch, Alpha._

“It’s _Washington,_ ” Wash says too loudly, startling the cadets clustered outside the operation room. He clenches his fist, turns on his heel and marches down the hall. His boots clomp against metal plating, not concrete. North is at his shoulder, and then gone. The doors to the viewport replace the double doors leading out of the hospital for those few seconds before he bangs through them.

_Washington. Agent Washington. My name is Agent Washington._

Dr. Grey had a way of reassuring people until she utterly terrified them. So when she’d examined the biofoam puffing from Caboose’s wound and chirped that he would be just fine, Wash could wipe at least _that_ worry from his mind. Except then Caboose started to cough and when they pulled his helmet off they found his lips red. Dr. Grey had said, _oh, well, that’s a lot less fine,_ in that same tone of voice and that’s when Wash’s already tenuous grasp on his calm began to weaken.

“I’m on Chorus.”

_Agents North and South were tortured._

_He’ll definitely need a transfusion, so let’s get that started. Oooh, yup, better get that started immediately!_ _**That’s** _ _the face of a soldier approaching exsanguination._

“Blue Team Leader.”

_The Insurrectionists have-_

_Where’s Tucker? Wash,_ _**where is Captain Tucker?** _

“Felix has-”

_-issued no statements-_

__“-disappeared with Tucker-”

_Disappeared?_

- _in regards to their demands._

“-and we don’t know where they are.”

Wash stumbles to the side as his throat closes to about the size of a coffee straw. Air barely squeaks through and his vision swims, his limbs shake, his heart hammers. “Don’t know where- Don’t know-” If he passes out here in the hall he’s just going to freak even more people out on top of putting himself out of commission. He has to get a grip.

God damn it, _they need him_ and he has to-

He _has_ to-

“ _One._ ”

Wash wheezes. His elbow hits the wall hard as he slumps against it and the pain rings slowly up to his shoulder. He feels it like his brain is underwater.

The voice above him commands obedience. “Washington, _one._ ”

He gasps, “-one.”

“Two.” He can’t, he has to- “ _Two,_ Agent Washington.”

“T- two.”

He counts with the voice, upward to ten until the straw becomes a pipe again and he can breathe. He leans propped up against the wall, discarded and weak but he’s breathing again, the spots are clearing from in front of his eyes and the sweat stops slicking up the inside of his survival suit. He glances up to see Carolina inches from his face, her hand gripping his shoulder tight. He hadn’t even known it was there. “…thanks Boss.”

Carolina squeezes his shoulder. “I came to find you. Church thinks he can track the teleportation grenade’s radiation signature.”

 _Future cube,_ Wash thinks wildly. _They’re called future cubes._ “I thought that wasn’t possible.”

“Apparently we were wrong. Are you good?”

Even if he wasn’t, he has to be. “I’m good.” Wash pushes himself up and squares his shoulders. His limbs are weak but he knows from experience that it’ll pass. “I’m good. Lead on.”

It doesn’t bode well that Epsilon starts off with, “There is so much goddamn math involved in this, I don’t even know what to say to you people.”

“Just a yes or no, Church.”

“There’s no _yes or no,_ Carolina,” Epsilon grunts, and his little avatar is fritzing and glitching even as he emotes _complete and utter frustration,_ tiny arms waving, furiously impatient hand gestures thrown out with no regard to personal safety. Wash realizes with a deep sense of discomfort that he knows Epsilon is agitated, _very_ agitated, can tell just by the sound of his voice that he’s probably been staving off episodes ever since Washington radioed in their status two hours ago. He allows that feeling of sympathetic kinship to sit until he remembers that Epsilon’s the reason he’s even _having_ episodes in the first place.

“ _Epsilon,_ ” Wash snaps, interrupting his tirade on _you have no idea_ and _causality_ and _spacetime vectors are still being calculated with ballpark figures_ and whatever else he decides to yell about. “Can you find them or not?”

Epsilon glares up at him but Wash holds it, this time. This transcends the weird unaddressed thing between them. This is about their _team._

Epsilon breaks first. “I can narrow it down to five possible locations.”

Kimball takes a deep breath.

“ _I can’t_ get it lower than that! I can’t. I know they’re within a certain bubble but that’s it. There’s only five defensible structures in that bubble so it’s got to be one of those.”

Carolina folds her arms and stands next to the map projection that Epsilon has laid his findings over in red. “That’s assuming they didn’t just land and then immediately move him elsewhere.”

“Not likely. Considering their numbers, logistics don’t allow them moving him manually without making a ruckus. They’d have to use teleportation grenades and Felix won’t want himself incapacitated if he has to wrangle Tucker at the same time.”

“This is also assuming Felix won’t just kill him,” Kimball says grimly, and it’s only the sickened tone of her voice that keeps Wash from slamming a fist against the table.

“Also not likely. No point in kidnapping him if he just wanted him dead. He’ll at least call Hargrove first, see what he wants done with him.” Epsilon’s avatar fuzzes at the edges. “…probably torture him for info. Or to get to us. Or fuck, it’s Felix, he might just do it for fun.”

“Shit,” Kimball breathes out.

“Tucker won’t break.” Carolina keeps her arms folded tight and Wash envies her for the steadiness in her tone. “He wouldn’t want Felix to have the satisfaction.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m _worried_ about,” Epsilon mutters.

“Moving on,” Wash manages, voice tight.

Epsilon’s avatar looks at him before waving a hand. “We need to investigate all five of these structures within the next three hours if we want to find him before they risk moving again.”

Kimball cants her hip to the side, folding her arms. “That’s going to be a problem. We don’t have enough troops.”

“Carolina and I can each take a structure on our own.” Wash glances at Carolina, who nods. Her confidence in his assessment helps settle his stomach a little. “That leaves three more. Who can we-”

About then is when the door slides open and the entire Red Team minus Lopez tumbles inside.

That Kimball doesn’t even pause in confusion speaks volumes of how accustomed to her Captains she’s become. “Perfect. Colonel, can I trust searching one of these structures to you and your men?”

“Hogwash,” Sarge howls from beneath Simmons’s arm as the Reds untangle themselves. “I can search all three of those ex _otic_ locales by myself! But I’ll allow Grif and Simmons to take the other one, on account that Grif will _surely_ die and Simmons will have to leave his body there to save himself.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence Sarge,” Grif mutters, shoving Donut’s leg off of his shoulder and pushing himself up, “but you’ll notice that none of us actually _volunteered_ to go.”

“Of course not,” Kimball says tightly, “because I’m _ordering_ you.”

“Hey I didn’t say I had a problem with going. Just that we didn’t volunteer.”

“Saving those damn, dirty Blues has become the blemish on the face of the glorious Red Army-”

Grif scoffs. “An army that doesn’t actually exist-”

“-but at least it’ll leave ‘em in our debt. Which I can use to take their weapons! And then kill ‘em!”

“Sarge, c’mon,” Donut whispers. “Caboose is in _surgery._ ”

“Oh, right.”

“ _Enough_ ,” Wash snaps, because on the long list of shit he’d never wanted to see Caboose coughing up blood was pretty near the top, and because every second spent _fucking around_ is another second Tucker is in Felix’s hands. “Can we just get this going?”

“Agreed.” Kimball nods toward the Reds. “Sarge, organize your two teams. All of you I want _no contact;_ information only. If you find Tucker or Felix, or _any_ sign of merc presence, then radio in and hold position until reinforcements arrive.”

Epsilon’s avatar flickers and disappears. “I’m gonna concentrate on narrowing this band down. Maybe if they do jump again-”

Carolina’s helmet tilts down. Something must pass between them –maybe Epsilon even contacts her on a private channel- because after a moment’s pause she turns away. “All right, keep on it. Forward us the coordinates before you get distracted.”

“Already done.”

“General-”

Kimball nods. “You and Washington assemble the final squad. I suggest Andersmith and Bitters.”

“Understood.” Washington can feel the same itch to _act_ in Carolina that he feels in his own limbs, the need to wrap up the talking and just _do._ As they fall in step beside one another, the Reds bickering at their backs, he feels a force between them similar to that warbling, tenuous thread that connected _all_ the Freelancers on their way to a dangerous mission. It was in those quiet moments on the dropship that they all knew, they knew they were all cut of the same cloth, no matter how different their personalities could be.

“We’ll get him back,” Carolina says tightly, unprompted. “And then we’ll strangle him ourselves.”

Wash manages a laugh that’s more bitterness than cheer. “You got it, Boss.”

 

* * *

 

Tucker kind of hates that Felix is so good at his job.

It would be one thing if he was all talk and no show. Tucker can relate to that. That’s almost literally all they did in Blood Gulch before things got insane, just talk shit and pretend to shoot each other. Or actually try to shoot each other and fail miserably. From what Tucker understands, just about everybody who wasn’t secretly a computer or some decades-old drill sergeant had been assigned maybe only one or twice before getting shunted into the sim program and dumped into the canyon. Who the fuck knows how to fight a war with just that? Nobody. Sarge has no excuse, though Tucker heard something about Grif seeing a bunch of action. Or not seeing it. Seeing the aftermath of it.

Yeah, they all wake up screaming sometimes. It’s normal, it’s fine.

The point is that Felix is actually _good_ at being a piece of shit merc. Which means when they land and Tucker goes for the hilt of his sword, Felix is already grabbing his wrist and twisting his arm _hard,_ slamming his full weight into the small of Tucker’s back and taking him to the ground.

Well, it was worth a try.

“Get his weapons,” Felix snaps to the handful of black-armored soldiers that swarm them, his stupid pointy knee burrowing right into Tucker’s spine. “Jesus. Like I have to do everything myself.”

“Maybe you should try making better friends,” Tucker grinds out. He jerks when a soldier picks up his sword hilt, turning it over in her hands. Dammit, that’s _his_ super badass awesome alien sword.

“Who needs friends when I’ve got enemies like you?” Felix reaches down and pops the seals on Tucker’s fusion pack with a hiss.

It takes Felix lifting it off of him and the other mercs joining in for him to realize they’re stripping his armor. “Hey, whoa, hey, I’m absolutely _not_ into you.”

“That’s because you have no taste.” Felix stands back as the soldiers wrench Tucker to his feet, methodically plucking off his armor. Tucker’s HUD blares with compromised integrity warnings until a soldier pulls his helmet off too. “Luckily, I do. So you’ve got nothing to worry about.”

Tucker rolls his eyes.

The soldiers take his armor and weapons into a nearby structure in pieces, and Tucker allows himself a moment to get his bearings as he’s dragged inside between two more mercs, Felix trailing behind. One of the alien temples by the looks of it. Not one of the huge fuck-you spires Tucker’s seen in the distance past the cliffs of Armonia, but one of the smaller, flatter installations with the circular motif, walkways spiraling around the center courtyard, entrances these gaping hallways that lead down underground into a mass of tunnels. Tucker has to wonder if the aliens who lived here before were dramatic or just masochists. Who the fuck builds a place like this? Where would you even put the gift shop?

“Sword’s busted,” one of the mercs says, handing the hilt off to Felix.

“No,” Felix muses, holding the hilt up to the light to examine the runes carved into the side, “unfortunately, damn thing only works when this moron’s holding it.”

“You just don’t know what you’re doing with it. It’s like giving a Cadillac to a six-month-old. Not that I’m saying you can’t handle a sword, except that’s exactly what I’m saying-”

“Shut him up,” Felix sniffs.

Tucker doesn’t see the fist coming until it’s slammed across his face so hard he bites the inside of his cheek and tastes blood. His teeth rattle in his head and stars burst in front of his eyes and surprise surprise, it fucking _hurts like a motherfucker_ to get your bare face punched by someone in full armor. Tucker sags in their grip and tries to take stock, figure out if his jaw is still intact or if he’s just being a hypochondriac.

It kind of sinks in then, what he’d done by trading places with Caboose. He’s definitely gonna be tortured. Maybe killed, but absolutely tortured. With knives probably, maybe worse; Felix seems the type who probably also gets off on giving people cigarette burns, like some kind of self-important mobster. God, that would suck.

He remembers one day when he was still in the hospital after being stabbed, when he finally was well enough to sit up without tearing his wound and Wash had just dragged Caboose in and sat down across from the both of them. He’d given them that flat, blank, barely-there look that made Tucker’s skin crawl and, methodically and in that same flat, blank voice, began going over all the most common techniques to resist interrogation and torture.

Tucker thought it was a bit much. He only got stabbed a little bit. Washington just likes being dramatic.

As he pokes his tongue against the cut inside his mouth, he tries to recall some of the tips Wash gave. He’s gonna be tortured. That’s absolutely going to happen, because Felix hates him and he’s probably kind of curious to see what he knows. Joke’s on him: even if Tucker _would_ talk, he doesn’t know very much at all.

Plus if he knows his asshole friends, they’re probably already trying to figure out how to mount a rescue. Tucker has no idea if they’ll be _successful,_ since it was a fucking future cube and he could be literally in another dimension right now for all he knows, but he thinks he’s probably still on the planet.

Felix is in his face suddenly, using his sword hilt under his chin to lift his head up. Tucker weighs the pros and cons of spitting blood into his face. “Just this once, I’m gonna make this clear for you.”

“Awesome,” Tucker rasps.

“You are _not_ getting out of here alive.” Felix taps the hilt against his chin. “Ah ah- look me in the eye. …visor. Look me in the visor, because I want to make sure you actually get it. Y’know? You _are_ going to die. It’s going to be slow, and it’s gonna be painful, but just how slow and painful it is is really up to you.”

“Christ, you’re annoying,” Tucker mumbles.

Felix hits him with his own sword hilt and that’s just insulting. As his head reels he’s dragged down into the hallways below. One of the pointlessly empty rooms has since been repurposed for what looks to be a happy little torture dungeon. There’s already magnetic shackles on the wall and blood all over the ground. Tucker tries not to think about anybody he knows having been here before as they snap him into the shackles, wrists and ankles. It sucks and it’s uncomfortable and his arms are restrained in a way that if he doesn’t hold them up, the metal digs through his suit into his wrists. So those’re gonna be scraped raw, awesome.

Is that a tip? Just looking at all the shit that’s going to hurt and considering it a mild inconvenience? It has to be, right? It’s not a big deal if you don’t make it a big deal.

Tucker looks down at the blood in the grooves on the floor and tries to keep his heart from hammering him straight into cardiac arrest.

The mercs all leave except for one right outside the open door. Shouting insults doesn’t seem to do anything, so Tucker alternates between holding up his arms and letting them droop. It doesn’t take long for his wrists to hurt but honestly this is not the worst torture he’s ever envisioned. He’s bored to death, sure. But that’s what singing is for.

“I’ve been _really_ tryyyyin’ bayyybeh,” Tucker croons, tapping his toes. The acoustics in the room are kind of nice. “Tryin’ to hold back this feelin’! For _sooooo_ looong!”

“Hey, shut the fuck up,” the merc calls from the doorway, irritated.

“Excuse me? You’re getting a front row seat to some quality entertainment. You should be fucking paying me.” Tucker rests his head back against the wall. “I take personal checks, cash, money orders or sexual favors.”

“I cannot believe there’s two of you now,” the merc mutters.

Tucker sputters. “Fuck- you’re not saying me and _Felix,_ right? Fuck you! I’m not like him, he’s a dickbag!”

“ _You’re_ a dickbag.”

“Your _mom’s_ a dickbag!”

“Both of you shut the fuck up,” Felix snarls, and he turns into the room after shoving away the soldier at the door with what Tucker imagines is probably a glare. He can’t be sure, but he’d glare too- oh fuck, no, _they are alike._ God. That’s the worst torture of all, that realization. Of course, it’s probably also the way Felix just marches in, kicks open a metal crate and starts pulling out knives. That could also be what’s freaking him the fuck out.

Wash had said the mind games were the thing to look out for. It’s the _mind games_ that get you to talk and make you less useful. Blah blah enduring pain, blah blah tell them conflicting stories, blah. Apparently physical torture isn’t all that reliable in getting information because people don’t like getting hurt, which is totally crazy.

“To the surprise of nobody, Felix has a knife fetish,” Tucker observes, but his limbs still tingle with nerves and he tries to remember how to keep emotions off his face. Fucking helmets. Make it so easy to be a blank slate.

"Keeeep talking, Tucker,” Felix drawls, examining his knives one by one and laying them out on a nearby table. “This part is literally just for my own pleasure. I get thirty minutes with you until Locus shows up, and I intend to _savor_ it.”

“I dunno dude, this isn't really the atmosphere for _savoring._ ”

Felix turns to face Tucker, fingertip testing the point of a knife that looks horribly similar to the one Tucker's had inside him before.

He puffs himself up. “Maybe some candles? Silk sheets. Standing up is cool and all, but.”

“You really don't actually get it,” Felix says with a curious lilt to his voice that sets Tucker's rattled teeth on edge. “You think you're gonna get rescued.”

“Considering our track record against you bozos-”

Felix saunters closer with that knife and Tucker presses himself back against the wall before he can stop himself. “Even _if_ Kimball manages to find out where we are, you know the second we know they're on their way we're going to _kill_ you, right? You're not worth enough to _fight_ to keep alive.”

Tucker's throat closes up. He knew, the minute he saw that gun on Caboose, the moment he heard that tone of finality in Wash's voice. He knew.

Felix is still watching him closely, knife collection forgotten on the nearby table, tapping the flat of the blade against his finger. Tucker doesn't like it, doesn't like that Felix looks like he'd just figured something out.

“D’you know just how _tragically common_ it is for people to die after invasive surgery?”

It takes a second to stick, what he's getting at. Tucker runs it through his head; there’s no way, no way. Dr. Grey would’ve probably handled the surgery herself, and for being an irrevocable lunatic she’s also a goddamn genius. There’s no way she’d screw up pulling a bullet out of someone’s gut, no way.

“The look on your face says you _don’t_ know. I think the number is ridiculously high, all things considered. I mean, we can clone organs but people still die when they get cut open? That shit’s bananas. Man, now I want to look this up, I got myself all curious.”

“God, just kill me now and save me having to listen to you talk,” Tucker mutters to calm the pounding of his heart as he tries to reason with himself. There’s no way he could still get to Caboose. What would even be the point, breaking into a giant city just to take out one wounded soldier? Maybe he was still sore over that kick. Fuck, he could be, it’s _Felix._

“Holy shit, are you kidding me? According to the last reported statistics from the UNSC, a whopping _fifteen percent_ of wounded soldiers die from ballistic gunshot wounds. Number shoots up if the weapon's plasma, too.” Felix sidles up next to Tucker, jabbing his armored elbow into Tucker’s side. “And there’s always a risk when working with anesthesia. People just stop fucking breathing. You know, I might be a no-good, bloodthirsty money-grubbing merc but sometimes the job requires finesse. Sometimes a client wants it to look like an accident. You know how you do that?” Felix mimes an injection needle. “Air bubble, potassium, whatever you’ve got handy, right into the IV. Fuckin’ _anybody_ could do it.”

God, he’s _still going._ This must be the torture Wash prepared them against. Literally, if he has to listen to one more garbage word fall out of this walking landfill’s mouth, Tucker will just find a way to kill _himself_. “Yeah, anybody who isn’t likely to get their head blown off the second they come within two miles of the city proper,” Tucker scoffs. “If this is you trying to get to me, you’re like, way rusty dude. This is pathetic. And even if you _could_ get into the hospital, you’d get your ass kicked six ways to Sunday before you even got close to-”

Felix taps the side of his helmet and says, “Hey Valasquez, you read me?”

Tucker snaps his mouth shut. His calming heart starts pounding again. _No way. There’s no way._

The voice that answers is calm, steady, not a quaver to be found. “I copy.”

_No way._

“God. I love seeing you without that helmet.” Felix holds up his fingers to frame Tucker’s face. “Scratch that- I love seeing you without that helmet when I’ve got one up on you. You have no idea how much you telegraph, do you?” Felix taps his helmet again. “Where are you at right now?”

“Just stowed my gear. Making my way over to Recovery to visit the captain.”

“ _No-_ ” Tucker starts, lunging. Felix slams his hand right against his chest and shoves him back against the wall so hard the wind kicks out of him. That traitor, that _fucking traitor._ How long has Valasquez been in their pocket?

Oh Jesus Christ, the gunfight, the rooftop, _no wonder_ Felix knew where they were-

“Valasquez is _so_ reliable. One of the better personnel decisions that Hargrove’s made, if I’m honest.” Felix presses harder against Tucker’s chest until he coughs, adding pressure each time he lets out a gasp. “Let me know once you’re alone with him.”

“Roger.”

Felix leans his weight against his hand and Tucker holds his breath as long as possible, but it doesn’t work. He just ends up gasping harder and giving Felix more room to press down. Not that it makes a difference, with Felix in power armor and him in fucking _nothing-_

“You know what I hate about that face, though? That you have it. I mean, _what a waste._ With a face like that you could’ve been so much more than a loser, but I guess your _revolting_ personality is the only overachieving thing about you.”

As it gets harder and harder to breathe Tucker begins to struggle in earnest. Felix is going to suffocate him, just smother him with just a fucking hand on his chest-

“I’m here.”

“He still under?”

“Sleeping like a baby.”

“All right. Hey pet his hair a little, he’s probably into that.”

“I really don’t want to.”

Felix mutters, “Spoilsport,” and finally lets up on Tucker. He coughs and gasps and he wonders for a second if he’ll ever breathe right again, ribs aching, lungs burning.

“You fucker,” Tucker wheezes, and _fuck_ he wishes there weren’t tears in his eyes because they make him look like he’s not serious but god damn is he ever serious. If he had _five seconds_ alone with this fucking prick he’d-

“ _Manners,_ Lavernius. I do kind of have an inside agent ready to commit homicide.”

Tucker snaps his mouth shut and glares with every ounce of fire he has in him.

“Better. We’ll work on it.” Felix turns away. “Keep an eye on him. I don’t want that oaf back on the field ever again. If it seems like he’ll be making a speedy recovery?” Felix’s helmet tilts, then swings back around to regard Tucker coolly. “Kill ‘im.”

Tucker’s heart pounds hard against his battered, bruised ribs.

 


	3. Chapter 3

There are moments, when faced with unbearable decisions, that Wash feels as if every choice he makes is the wrong one.

Because this—this is impossible. _Both_ of his teammates are in trouble; _both_ of them need him, and Wash wants nothing more than to tear himself in two, so that he can be the leader, the _friend_ , that both Caboose and Tucker need right now.

He has to go bring Tucker home. He knows this. It’s less of a choice and more of simple fact, really, but he doesn’t feel any less guilty for it.

Because standing here at Caboose's bedside and knowing that he has to _go_ , that Caboose might very well wake up to _two_ missing teammates, that this is _his_ fault for telling Caboose and Tucker to break cover and come to him when _he_ should've gone to them, when he should've went and _got them_ —

He feels like a monster.

 _Caboose will be fine,_ he tells himself sternly. Dr. Grey had told him the same, when he’d seen her outside of Caboose’s hospital room— _“you got him here in the nick of time!”—_ but looking down at Caboose, so uncharacteristically still and silent, it’s difficult to believe her words. It’s even more difficult to leave, but Tucker’s need is far more desperate, and Wash only has a few minutes before the Pelican is ready for take-off. He’s never been so grateful that the hospital was right next to the landing and take-off zones.

Wash rests a gloved hand on Caboose’s forehead, brushing the sweaty curls off of his temples. “I’ll be back,” he whispers, and heads for the door.

“Wash?”

Caboose’s voice reaches him just as he’s pushing the door open, and he whips around, rushing back over. “Caboose! How are you feeling?”

“I have a stomachache,” Caboose mumbles, and Wash puts his hand on his teammate’s forehead again.

“I know. But you’ll be okay. You just need to rest.”

The relief at hearing Caboose’s voice and see his eyelids crack open starts to drain as Caboose frowns up at him. His eyes flit behind Wash, then around the room, until they fasten on Wash’s once more. “Where is Tucker?”

 _Goddammit._ “Caboose…”

“Wash.”

Caboose looks at him solemnly, and Wash can’t do it, he can’t lie to him. “I’m going to get Tucker. I promise.”

“Kay.” Caboose sighs heavily, then to Wash’s horror, throws back his blankets and swings his feet to the side of his bed

“Caboose!” He pushes frantically at Caboose’s shoulders as the monitors start to go haywire. “What are you—get back in bed!”

Caboose looks at him as if he’s the crazy one, right before he _rips the IV out of his arm_ and removes ten years off of Wash’s life in the process. “We are going to get Tucker, Agent Washington. You, and me, and Freckles.” He pauses. “And Church. And Carolina. And I guess the Reds can come too.”

“Caboose—” Wash takes a calming breath, putting a hand on Caboose’s shoulder and resuming his attempts to maneuver him back into bed. “Caboose…you can’t…you’re _hurt,_ you have to rest…”

“But what if Tucker’s hurt too?”

Wash takes another deep breath. “That’s why I’m going to get him. Okay? I’m going to get Tucker, and bring him home, and then everything will be okay.”

_“Wash, we’re ready to move out.”_

Carolina’s voice sounds in his ear, and Wash closes his eyes briefly. “Caboose, I’m sorry, I have to go.”

The look on Caboose’s face is like a sledgehammer to his heart. “You’re leaving without me?”

“I’m so sorry,” Wash says, and he is. This is rapidly shaping up to the be the worst day of his life. “You need to stay here. You’re too hurt.”

“But what if I take the glowing green unit?”

“Caboose—no. You’re more hurt than that.” Wash is frankly amazed that he’s been able to remain sitting up this long.

“But, ah, see, I have to go. Carolina always makes sure that I am on Tucker's team, because Tucker does these stupid things and now I have to fix the stupid thing that he did. Maybe I can switch us back.”

“Switch you back?”

Caboose nods. “Tucker had a very stupid plan, to go with the bad people, so I need to go show him that I have a _better_ plan, to switch us back.”

Wash’s heart is shattering in his chest, he’s sure of it. “ _Both_ of you have terrible plans. We’re gonna do my plan instead. I go get Tucker, and then none of us go anywhere for a while.” He’s going to get the three of them a week off after this if it’s the last goddamn thing he does. “Do you trust me to do that?”

Instead of answering, Caboose sniffs loudly and wraps his arms around Wash’s waist. It can’t be comfortable, but Caboose clings on for dear life. Wash hugs him back gently and tries not to scream or howl or do anything to suggest that he isn’t in absolute control of this situation.

“Wash.”

Carolina’s voice sounds in his ear this again, more of a whisper than a command, and he extracts himself from Caboose. “We’ll be back soon, buddy.”

 _I promise,_ he wants to say, but doesn’t.

* * *

 

It’s always been obvious to Emily that she is, in fact, the best at everything she does. The head of her class, the most efficient in her research department, the star of her volleyball team. When it comes to medicine, she is so far out of everyone’s league that it's laughable. She has the steadiest hands, the most creative solution to any problems, and she can operate on _everything_ —hearts, brains, bones and all.

She is the best. She knows this.

She wishes that everyone else knew it, too.

It doesn’t make her feel sorry for herself, or second guess her abilities, or hurt her feelings when the soldiers hovering outside of her operating room pepper her with questions and hurl accusations.

It _annoys_ her.

Because she _has_ this. It’s obvious. She has a higher survival rate than all of the other doctors on this planet combined, and she would think, that after the countless surgeries and saves and, frankly, _miracles_ she has pulled off, that the soldiers on this base would have more faith in her.

It’s particularly annoying because Emily is certain that, if given the chance to be a soldier, she would be the best at _that_ job as well.

For the most part, she’s learned to tune it out over the years. The hovering, the questions, the screaming, the wailing. She has no time for it. But it’s difficult when it’s soldiers like Caboose on her table—soldiers whom everyone knows and loves. Emily has had to field questions from at least twenty different people today, who all spoke with varying degrees of concern and anger. _What happened? Is he okay? Do you need more blood? Am I a donor? Why isn’t he awake yet? Will you keep an eye on him?_

The last question is from Agent Washington, right after he slumps out of Caboose’s room and informs her that Caboose needs his IV put back in. Washington looks more dejected than she’s ever seen him.

“Of course I’ll keep an eye on him,” she says, exasperated and more than a little annoyed. “Two eyes, in fact! I will do my job, Agent Washington, and you go do yours.”

“Thank you,” he says, “for saving his life.”

He sounds so grateful and so very near the edge of tears that Emily softens a little. “No need for thanks, Washington. Just a teensy bit of faith is all.”

It only took her one failed _I promise_ to learn to never promise _anything,_ and to never ask for anyone’s trust when it came to operating. Faith is better. Faith is all she needs.

He nods, taking off the hallway and pausing just long enough to clap a hand to the shoulder of one of the soldiers coming in the opposite direction. “Will you check in on him periodically?”

“Of course, sir,” the soldier answers, and once she hears that calm, steady voice, Emily remembers the name: Valasquez. She remembers this soldier from their days in the Federalist compound, particularly because Valasquez was never hysterical or irrational, and never skulked outside the operating room to bombard her with questions. It was a relief. It was a welcome change.

It was highly disconcerting.

Emily watches Agent Washington round the corner and sighs, heading into Caboose’s room. If she knows Caboose, and he’s awake, he’s probably half out of bed and bleeding all over the floor again. She’ll fix him up. She’ll handle it and they’ll wait, together.

She knows what it’s like to have to wait, when the ones you love the most are no longer safe in the capital.

She knows what it’s like to be left behind.

* * *

 

“Anyway,” Felix says brightly, and he slaps his palm against the wall right next to Tucker’s head. “Where were we?”

Tucker takes a moment to congratulate himself on not flinching at Felix’s renewed proximity. Truth be told, his stoicism is born more of distraction than any sort of badassery on his part, but he’ll take it. _Caboose is fine_ , he tells himself firmly. _He’s fine. Wash is there. He wouldn’t let anything happen to Caboose._

 _Wash doesn’t want anything to happen to you,_ either, another part of his brain whispers. _Wash was two seconds away from doing exactly what you did. Wash is probably mounting the most dramatic rescue mission of all time._

He shoves that idea right back down, quashes the little blossom of hope that unfurls at the thought. It’s so tempting to hold onto the thought that’s gotten him out of so many tight corners: that Wash is on his way, that he’ll be right here, because, although Tucker would never admit it to his face in a million years, no one brings the cavalry quite like Wash. But he _can’t_ hope for that, because Wash can’t come for him. Wash needs to stay right where he is, with Caboose. Wash needs—

He’s distracted enough that he isn’t quite able to mask the hiss of pain that escapes when Felix gets a hand around Tucker’s jaw and wrenches his face up. “Uh, helloooooo? Are you listening to a word I’m saying?”

“Trying not to,” Tucker grits out as best he can with Felix’s armored fingers digging into his neck. His thumb is on a particularly painful pressure point right behind Tucker’s ear, and it’s giving him the worst waves of nausea. Wash had shown him this pressure point in training, and Tucker had admittedly been a smart ass about the whole thing— _c’mon, it’s like the size of a fucking quarter, no way that drops a man_ —until Wash had demonstrated just how effective said pressure point could be.

Felix gets his other thumb behind Tucker’s opposing ear, pressing hard, and fuck that hurts, it _hurts,_ it had been bad enough when Wash had dropped him with the goddamn thing but he at least hadn’t been wearing Kevlar and power armor when he did it. Tucker makes a half-gasping, half-yelping noise as little black dots sprinkle across his vision, and the accompanying nausea has him gagging—the mastoid process, that had been what Wash called it, and Tucker had made some stupid quip about the name only he can’t quite remember what he said—

Felix drops his hands but doesn’t back up out of Tucker’s space, and Tucker gags, trying not to make it obvious that he’s still winking stars out of his eyes. “Can I give you some advice?” he says, once he’s remembered how to speak.

“I can’t wait to hear what you think passes for _advice_ ,” Felix says in disgust, backing up just enough to reexamine his torture table of knives for like the tenth time. He exchanges the one currently in his hand for something that, to Tucker’s eyes, looks exactly the fucking same. Felix is definitely fucking with his head. Tucker wishes it wasn’t working.

“So, like, if you’re gonna bust out the really kinky shit, you gotta build up to it first,” Tucker says, doing his best to ignore the casual way Felix saunters back on over to him. “I’m supposed to be the guest. You just, bring me in here, chain me to the wall—I mean, have you never even heard of foreplay? Or like, warming things up a bit? Because you’re not supposed to go right for—”

“You know, I think I’m gonna cut out your tongue,” Felix announces, like he’s commenting on the fucking _weather,_ and Tucker is so startled that he stops talking. “Hmm. Yeah. You just—I mean, do you know how fucking annoying your voice is? Like, do you really, really know? God. Talk about nails on a chalkboard.”

“Talk about the pot calling the fucking kettle—”

And then panic explodes in the pit of his stomach, because Felix is back in his face, wrenching open Tucker’s jaw with one hand. Tucker tries to thrash away, but then Felix _actually puts the knife inside of his mouth_ and Tucker stops moving, stops struggling, stops _breathing_. Felix presses the flat of the blade deliberately against Tucker’s tongue and yep, Tucker’s absolutely going to have nightmares about this for the rest of his life, providing he gets to live the rest of it out.

“That’s better,” Felix whispers. “Thought that might shut you the fuck up. You know, I gotta say, I don’t think it would’ve shut _Caboose_ up. Think he would’ve kept blabbering on and on even with a fucking _knife_ in his mouth.”

Which is about the last thing that Tucker wants to think about right now—Caboose, here, in his position—but it gives him renewed vigor, lets him know that he did the right thing. Felix must see it in his eyes, because he laughs a little. “Shame, though. Even after you played the big hero, Caboose is still gonna die, and so are you, and so are the rest of your annoying friends.”

Tucker doesn't let himself panic at those words. _Caboose is fine_ , he reminds himself again. _He's fine. Caboose is fine, Wash is fine, everyone is fine, fine, fine--_

Felix removes the knife, and Tucker tries not to make a show out of sucking in air. The shaky feeling of relief is all too brief, because Felix just moves the blade to press against Tucker’s temple. “We’ll save that ‘til the end, though. The whole tongue thing, I mean. Since you’re apparently _so_ into foreplay, I figure why rush the good parts? Right? There’s so many other things I could do first.”

He takes the blade and runs it down the side of Tucker’s face, temple to jaw. It’s slow and deep and way too close to Tucker’s eye, and it’s _definitely_ gonna scar, and Tucker has to clench his teeth together to keep from making a sound, but he can do this, he can handle this. Scars are badass. Scars are hot. He can do scars. “So many other things,” Felix continues, as if there’d been no break in the conversation. “I just want you to know that, eventually, I’m gonna cut out your obnoxious fucking tongue and send it to Agent Washington as a birthday present.”

 _Don’t think about it,_ Tucker tells himself firmly, and he thinks that’s another one of Wash’s tips: _they will threaten you with all sorts of things, but you mustn’t focus on the things they promise_. _Focus on the here. Focus on the now._

Tucker latches onto that. There’s no reason to think about if Felix is actually going to cut out his tongue or if he’s just trying his best to sound like a fucking lunatic. It doesn’t matter. It’s not happening now.

Tucker closes his eyes when Felix moves the knife to his abdomen and traces it along the outline of the scar from the tower. Felix has to work hard to cut through the Kevlar, and the cut is jagged and uneven, deep in some places and barely a surface wound in others. In some ways, the unpredictable nature of the pain is even worse than something more constant.

“So like, aren’t you gonna ask me any questions?” Tucker manages. “Because I’ve got about fifteen different conflicting stories that I was really looking forward to telling.”

“Hmm,” Felix says distractedly, glancing up and down Tucker’s body. Probably deciding what to carve up next. Great. “Weren’t you listening to me? I’ve got about—well, only twenty minutes now, until Locus arrives. This is just for fun.”

“You’ve got a pretty twisted—” Tucker cuts himself off with a hiss of pain as Felix drags the knife down the side of his neck before rallying “—a pretty twisted idea of fun. I mean, what the fuck is the point of taking someone captive if you aren’t gonna interrogate them?”

“I’m sure Locus will have tons of questions for you when he arrives,” Felix says, sounding totally bored at the very thought. “Weapon stockpile locations or, I don’t know, computer codes or some bullshit. He sucks all the joy out of interrogations, know what I mean?”

He takes the knife and digs it into the meat of Tucker’s shoulder, and Tucker’s only partially successful in smothering a yelp. Alarm bells start clanging in his head—fuck, that’s deep, it’s too deep, the blood is flowing at an alarming speed over his chest and down his side and it’s sticky and wet and there’s too much of it, much too much.

“Like that,” Felix says, the bored tone completely gone from his voice. “That. Your face, right there? _That’s_ the fun part.”

Felix takes the knife still buried in Tucker’s shoulder and twists, ever so slightly. Tucker’s no longer trying to smother a yelp so much as he is trying to bite back a scream, an actual scream, but nope, he’s not gonna let that out no matter how much it hurts, hurts, _hurts_ —

“Oh, come on Tucker,” Felix says, “I thought Agent Washington would’ve taught you better than that. Don’t you know that the harder you work at not screaming, the more people just want to hear you do it?”

Wash did tell him that, Tucker remembers, along with something about biting the inside of your cheek and spitting up blood to make the damage look worse than it is, but he’s having trouble remembering all of the tips because the knife is still inside of him and when he thrashes, the pain only intensifies.

“Close enough,” Felix says as Tucker lets out a groan, and finally withdraws the blade. He steps back a little, tapping the knife thoughtfully against his palm. “Now, where to next?”

* * *

 

The Pelican is still and somber, and Grif wishes _again_ that they all could’ve taken separate ones. Kimball had been adamant on that particular point, however— _it’ll be too obvious if five Pelicans take off  in five different directions, we’ll use one Pelican and drop you all off a safe distance away from the structures._

Grif knows that she has a point, but frankly, he can’t _stand_ this. Between Washington standing at the head of the ramp ready to bolt the second it lowers, Church muttering calculations under his breath, and Carolina sitting so still that it’s actually _distracting_ , Grif thinks he might snap under all the tension. And who wants to be even more wound up than they already are right before a secret mission? Christ, he wishes they’d all split up from the get-go. Then he and Simmons could’ve taken off in a Warthog, cracked a few jokes, and been on their merry way. Instead he’s stuck here, with everyone acting as if they’re on their way to a funeral instead of about to bust out a badass rescue mission. He doesn’t even have Sarge and Simmons to complain to, because they’re both up at the head of the Pelican arguing over directions with Andersmith and Bitters, the latter of whom is piloting the plane. The tension was even too much for _Donut_ , who'd appointed himself co-pilot about thirty seconds into the plane ride, when his pep talk was met with blank stares and awkward silence. So, great. Grif is apparently the only member of Red Team who didn't have the foresight to get the fuck away from all the drama, and now he’s stuck in the belly of the Pelican with Blue Team in the middle of their angst fest.

It’s tense. Way too fucking tense. And when it’s tense, Grif has an even worse filter between his brain and mouth than he usually does.

“So like. What’s the deal with you guys always trying to die for each other and shit?”

The slow way in which Agent Washington turns his head around to glare at him would probably have anyone else cowering, but Grif thinks that it’s a legitimate question, and he wants a legitimate answer. “What did you say?”

“I mean…” Grif shrugs. “Can’t help but notice that it’s always Blue Team getting shot or stabbed or trapping yourselves in memory units or trying to sacrifice yourselves for each other. It’s getting kind of old.”

Church pops up in front of his face, glaring. “Hey, Grif. Maybe you should shut the fuck up.”

“Hey, Church. I’m including _you_ in that statement, too, just so you know. I seem to remember us all running off to rescue your sorry ass from about a thousand Tex-bots.”

“No one said you had to be here,” Wash says, and he sounds  _so_ dramatic, like Grif was expecting, but he also sounds a little hurt. Great.

Grif rolls his eyes. “Okay, you’re missing the point.”

“And just what is the point, Grif?”

“The point,” Grif says, “Is that you were gonna do the exact same thing if Tucker didn’t beat you to it. You don’t see, like, a problem with that pattern?”

Wash is silent for a long time. Carolina hasn’t moved an inch, not a single inch, and Church seems speechless for what’s probably the first time in his whole existence.

“We’ll be at the first structure soon,” Wash finally says. “I…thank you. For coming. I know it’s not the first time, and—”

“Oh, my god,” Grif groans. “Dude, please shut up. I’m not complaining—I mean, I am, but—look. You guys just like, stress me out, okay? I mean, _all_ the fucking time. Just be nice to know Blue Team can go out on a mission and not come back all fucked up. That’s all I’m saying.”

Wash looks at him, and Grif just knows he has that stupid, stunned, grateful expression on his face like they haven’t all been friends for a gazillion years now. Like it’s some kind of _shocker_ that Grif might not want to go rescue another member of Blue Team _because he doesn’t want to have to go rescue another member of Blue Team._ “I’ll bear that in mind,” is all Wash says, thank god, and Grif sighs.

“Good. Because like, if we get some bullshit message over the radio saying that Tucker’s been rescued and you’ve given yourself up in his place, I swear to god I will lose my goddamn mind.”

“Alright,” Wash says. “I will get us all out of there in one piece. Okay?”

Grif snorts, leaning heavily back into his seat. “Hmph. I’ll believe that when I see it.”

* * *

Felix unchains Tucker’s wrists from the wall and Tucker hits the ground on his hands and knees, limbs shaking and head woozy with blood loss. There’s blood slicking up the inside of his survival suit and he ignores the way it smears onto the ground where he falls.  It’s all he can do not to pass out, but there’s no time for that shit. He’s got a motherfucking plan to put into action.

Since he missed the boat on screaming and wailing to avoid getting himself more injured, Tucker decides to try something else that Wash told him. _Pretend you’re more hurt than you actual are. If you’re bleeding, pretend you’re on the verge of falling unconscious._  

Tucker isn’t _pretending_ quite as much as he would’ve liked—everything hurts, everything, and he doesn’t have to fake the way he stumbles to the ground. He didn’t have to fake the lightheadedness, either. There were a few times over the past twenty minutes when Felix was going knife happy all over Tucker’s fucking skin that he really thought he was going to pass out. Tucker has to admit that Felix has a near surgical precision with that goddamn knife: the cuts are _just_ shy of too deep, designed to make him lose blood slowly. They're also, apparently, designed to hurt like a motherfucker. 

He wasn’t actually expecting to be unchained this soon, if at all. Tucker thought he’d be here at least until Locus showed up, and have to endure some questioning and some other kind of fucked up torture. He’d almost welcome the questioning, at this point. Felix hadn’t asked him a thing, not a single goddamn question, and it was without a doubt ten times worse than actually being interrogated. Tucker’s pretty sure he’s getting off on it.  He’s still kind of shocked that Felix just stepped back and let him crumple like that, but he probably just wanted the satisfaction of seeing Tucker fall.

Felix is saying something to the guard at the door—they’re moving him, Tucker realizes, although he’s not sure where, or why. Probably off to some other torture chamber. “We gonna go somewhere with a bed this time?” he mumbles from the floor. Felix doesn’t even turn around, still barking orders at the guard, and Tucker forces his eyes open and fastens them on his goal:

His sword.

It’s lying on the table next to Felix’s knives. Tucker’s not really sure why it’s still in the goddamn room, considering that no one but him can use it. If he had to guess, Tucker suspects Felix was gonna put it in his hand and force him to like, plasma burn his own face or something. They haven’t gotten to that part of this happy torture session, luckily, and the sword continues to sit innocently on the table. It’s lying among a whole host of other odds and ends, including, Tucker finally realized around the time where Felix was jamming the knife into his thigh, a box of fucking _future cubes_. He can practically hear Wash clicking his tongue in disapproval that it took Tucker this long to take stock of his surroundings. Tucker has no idea why the cubes are in here, but he has his suspicions: they’re probably duds, of questionable variety, that are going to take him god knows where, but they’re his only option.

Anywhere is better than here.

Now. He has to move now. _There won’t be a perfect moment,_ Wash drones in his head, and Tucker gets it now. He keeps tensing every time Felix half turns, expecting to be found out at any second.  He waits until Felix takes a step towards the guard before getting his feet under him and lunging towards his sword.

Tucker feels a flare of triumph as his hand closes around the hilt, and seconds later the blessed smell of plasma fills the air. He’s clumsy from blood loss and panic that he won’t let himself fully feel, and in his haste, he knocks the table over. The knives clatter to the floor, the box of future cubes bounces to the ground, and Felix whirls around with a snarl. He jolts backwards as Tucker slashes down at his chest, and—

And suddenly Tucker is _blind_ , his vision going white and hot, something bubbling and searing inside his chest, his bones, his heart, and Tucker thinks _, oh, more weird alien bullshit, that’s cool_. He stumbles backwards until he feels a wall behind him and edges along it towards where he knows the future cubes have fallen.

The light levels out, enough for him to see, and he casts his gaze around frantically until his eyes fasten on the cubes, vibrating on the floor ten feet away from where he'd expected them to be. Their orange glow is bright and looks almost hot to the touch, and, to his horror, they're sparking and smoking like a failing car engine. Tucker ignores the feeling of despair that threatens to overwhelm him, the one that says that the cubes are _broken_ and that he's _stuck_ here _(just this once I'm gonna make this clear for you you are not getting out of here alive)_ \- but they _can't_ be broken, they _can't_ , he's not going to die in this fucking room with fucking _Felix._

He has to try. Tucker runs, dives forward, and he’s there, his fingertips inches away and—

For the first time since landing himself in this mess, he really and truly s _creams_ as his vision whites out and pain explodes in his forearm. This time, it’s not the light, and it’s not even the unexpected, ungodly pain: it’s the sickening _sound_ that has him dancing dangerously close to unconsciousness,the clean, sharp _snap_ of the bones in his arm breaking Felix stomps down hard, pinning his wrist to the ground. Tucker slashes wildly with his sword as Felix flips him over onto his back, twisting the sword painfully out of his grasp and tossing it to the side. Felix presses his foot down onto Tucker’s broken arm, and he screams again, trying to thrash away, but Felix catches his free wrist and pins that to the ground, too.

“Holy shit,” Felix breathes, glancing around the room. The light is already fading, but the room is still filled with an unmistakable shimmer. “Well, well, well. Looks like you get to live a little longer, after all.”

“You motherfucker,” Tucker bites out, because it’s all he can manage, and he’s still struggling until Felix drops a knee into his chest and great, he only weighs about a million pounds in his armor.

“Carter,” Felix calls. “Pick up the sword.”

Carter, presumably, inches forward and picks up the sword, staring at it in awe. “It’s…it’s not doing anything, sir.”

“No fucking shit,” Felix snaps. “Bright it over here and place it in his hand.”

Felix tightens his grip on Tucker’s good wrist as Carter gingerly places the sword hilt in his hand. Tucker tries as hard as he can to swing it right at Felix’s stupid head, but he can’t even move either arm even an inch. He’s never felt so helpless in all his life and it’s fucking _bullshit_ , is what it is.

Felix isn’t even looking at him. He’s staring in awe around the temple, which has started to shimmer with increased intensity. “Well, goddamn. Looks like you just might not have been kidding with that c _hosen one_ bullshit after all.”

Great. Just great. Christ, what had he been _thinking,_ making that stupid comment about himself and his sword? He _hadn’t_ been thinking. He’d been trying to probe Felix’s curiosity, get his attention off of Caboose.

 _Well, congratulations, it worked,_ Tucker tells himself furiously, as Felix continues to gaze around the room in fascination before dropping his eyes back down to Tucker. Tucker doesn’t like the look on his face one fucking bit, and he likes it even less when Felix tilts his head and asks, “Why does it do that?”

“I don’t know, dude, I don’t make the rules.”

“Take it away,” Felix says to Carter, and Tucker’s fingers scrabble uselessly against his sword hilt as it’s yanked out of his hand. “And lock down security on the temple. The whole fucking planet’s bound to know we’re here now. And tell Locus to hurry up, for God’s sake, or I'm gonna cut out _Captain Tucker's_ tongue before Locus gets a chance to ask him shit.”

Between the throbbing pain in his arm and the blood loss, Tucker knows he’s only holding onto his consciousness with the aid of pure adrenaline. “Looks like it’s about to be a party,” he manages.

“Oh, it certainly is. Don’t worry, Tucker, I wouldn’t want you to miss a single second.” Felix leans closer to him, eyes narrowed to slits. “You’re not going _anywhere._ ”


	4. Chapter 4

_Palomo was pretty upset._

Andersmith adjusts the scope magnification on his rifle, delicately plucking a leaf out of his view and flicking it aside.  “No movement on the eastern exterior.”

_No movement west.  Do you think he’s going to do something stupid?_

“Lieutenant Palomo has received the same training and rank as the rest of us.  As his comrades, we should trust his judgment,” Andersmith scolds sternly.  He crawls back from his cover on his elbows before collapsing his rifle and sinking as far into the foliage as possible without losing sight of the structure.  Time to circle to the south side.  “Head north.  I’m going south for a crosscheck.”

_What’s the point?  This place is empty._

“Let’s confirm that before we report in.  A single stone left unturned could mean the Captain’s life.”  Andersmith knows that Bitters is a good soldier, more experienced than most of the other officers in the New Republic despite his jaded, devil-may-care attitude.  For all his complaining, he’ll do the job right.

He doesn’t hear from Bitters again until he himself is in position on the south side of the complex, peering through the windows through the scope of his rifle.  _I’ve got movement._

That pre-adrenaline dump tingles through Andersmith’s fingers and he has to flex his hands to keep from springing into action.  The sight of his own Captain so still and pale in that hospital bed had been motivation enough _without_ including Captain Tucker’s capture.  Andersmith has never thought of himself as the bloodthirsty type, but he supposes he can see now why someone would find the concept of vengeance so attractive.  “Any sign of the captain?”

_Nadda.  Moving in for a closer look, stay put._

“I’ll come assist you-”

_Just stay there, I’m not engaging.  Drop me your coordinates, I’ll swing around after confirming._

Andersmith hates waiting, but he’ll defer to the more experienced soldier on this one.  Bitters’ judgment tends to be disturbingly sharp when things are serious.

He does not move, flat on his belly in the underbrush with his muzzle fixed on the structure.  He sees none of the reported movement, and no sign of Bitters.  The minutes crawl by with no alarm raised and Bitters’s IFF pops up on his radar, moving closer until soldier himself materializes from the thicket and lays down at Andersmith’s side.

“No sign of the captain,” Bitters mutters.  “It looks like a small squad, maybe just four or five.”

“Felix?”

“Nope.  No Locus either, but they could be further inside.  Or Locus could be using that cloaking shit.”

Andersmith taps a finger against the stock of his rifle.  “We’ll still need to report this in.”

“Smith, come _on-”_

But any argument Andersmith could’ve put forth is cut off by a sudden _pull_ on his armor and the surrounding trees.  Bitters grabs onto his shoulder when the draw is so strong that it drags them across the ground, and then, suddenly, a burst of air outward that throws them back into the brush.  Andersmith’s visor dims to near blackness and he wonders for one terrifying moment if someone had just bombed the facility until Bitters grabs back onto him and points.

Andersmith follows the blurry outline of Bitters’ hand up to the sky.  His visor compensates for the source of the light and there, rending the sky miles away, is a single, solitary beam of white so brilliantly hot that the clouds through which it pierces dissipate into nothing.

The beam only lasts a few moments; it sputters, lights up again and then sputters once more before dying out.

“Well,” Bitters says, letting go of his arm, “ _that_ was different.”

 

* * *

 

“Future cubes are _definitely_ fried,” Simmons declares, kicking the ruined lumps of metal underneath a bush.

“Great.”

Simmons crouches beside Grif and together they stare out over the compound where there are way more soldiers than Grif had wanted to see rubbernecking on the top of the structure.  If there were zero soldiers, that would be perfect.  No soldiers. 

“Did you call in to Kimball yet?”

“Call and tell her what?  ‘Did you see that big fucking thing that probably everybody in this hemisphere saw?’  No Simmons, I did not.  I’m going to let the lady come to conclusions all on her own.”

“Don’t be an ass.”  Simmons rubs the chin of his helmet.  “I wonder if it was electromagnetic interference.”

“Dunno.”

“Why else would the cubes just _pop_ like that?  Like they got overheated or something?”

“If it was, wouldn't you be paralyzed? Y'know, like last time?”

Simmons pauses, staring at Grif before grunting and looking back over the compound.  “Shit.  That’s a good point.”

“Yeah.”

Simmons sighs.  “Okay, so not an emp.  What else could it-”  He lifts a hand to the side of his helmet the same moment Grif sees that blinking notification of a radio ping. 

Washington.  Oh good and it’s a group call, time to yell about the shitshow they just witnessed in the distance.  “Yo.”

Wash’s voice comes over the radio, crisp and no-nonsense and probably one of the most annoying things Grif has ever heard in his life.  _Team B, report._

Grif rolls his eyes.  “Sooo, everybody saw that right?”

 _Yeah,_ said Carolina, dry as ever.  _We saw it._

Church, naturally, has to chime in.  _Grif, it was a giant fucking column of pure white light shooting straight into the sky.  I think everybody saw it._

_Anybody else have your trusty portal-hoppin’ devices do the popcorn on ya?  Because that **may** or may not have happened here, depending on your answers._

A chorus of affirmative answers returns and Grif curses.  So _none_ of them have a handy extraction option ready for when they find Tucker.  Fantastic.

 _It must’ve happened to anybody within the blast wave,_ Church mutters.  _Which is good, probably.  Since it must’ve happened to Charon too, so they can’t just grab Tucker and disappear again._

“Then why are we still dicking around?  That temple’s obviously where Tucker is, let’s get this over with.”

_Don’t jump to conclusions.  We don’t know that Tucker has anything to do with it._

Honestly.  It’s like these people don’t even pay attention to their own goddamn lives.  “Wash?  A huge beam of white shooting out of the tip of a giant dick-shaped monument is the calling card of Tucker’s dreams.  He’s there.”  Wash’s stony silence lets Grif know the joke doesn’t go over as well as it should’ve.  Well, he heard _Simmons_ snort.  That’s good enough.  “Seriously.  This shit has Blue Team written all over it.”

“You have to admit, it **is** suspicious.”  There’s Simmons, backing him up only halfway as per usual.

Wash’s silence is telling.  _We should still confirm whether or not Tucker’s really there.  If we launch an assault and it turns out to be a diversion, we’ll lose Tucker **and** get slaughtered._

 _Or,_ Sarge offers and Grif just barely holds back a groan, _we could build-_

 ** _No,_** Carolina interrupts sharply.  Good idea.  Head that shit off at the pass.  _We’re going with Wash’s plan.  Everybody except for team C fall back to your extraction points.  We’ll rendezvous and meet up with Sarge and Donut and confirm that Tucker really is there before we do **anything.**_

Andersmith clears his throat. _What about these other locations?  We’ve got movement over here._

“Yeah, there’s mooks here too,” Grif supplies.

_If the Captain **isn’t** at the temple, we could miss an attempt to move him.  We’d lose him._

Carolina makes that nose-huffing sound she does when she’s pissed off about her plans not being airtight, reminiscent of a cartoon bull about to charge and Church simulates a tongue-clucking noise, which Grif never realized sounded so digitalized until he found out the guy was a computer.  _Alright, Carolina and me’ll go through the other locations and make sure Tucker’s not there while you guys meet up at the temple._

“You sure about that?” Simmons asks skeptically.  “If we’re wrong, that means you guys don’t get backup if _you_ find him.”

 _If Charon runs up against me, **they’ll** be the ones needing backup,_ says Carolina.  Grif only barely manages to hold back a scoff.  She’d definitely kill him for that.  Not that he doesn’t believe that she could probably kill every last one of the soldiers before they even manage to figure out what’s going on, it’s just.  C’mon.  Like their lives don’t already have enough drama without the Freelancers throwing down lines like _that_ all over the place.

 _It doesn’t matter anyway.  Charon will be concentrating their forces on the temple whether or not Tucker’s actually there, because they’ll be expecting **us** to march right in, _ Wash interjects coldly.  _So let’s not disappoint._

Dear Lord.  “Did all you Freelancers minor in stage theater or something?”

_I think it’s kinda cool!_

“Thanks for the assessment, Donut,” Simmons says flatly.

_Enough chatter.  Teams A, B and E fall back and rendezvous at the following coordinates.  Team C, hold position and wait for backup.  I’m moving out._

_Good luck, Boss._

_Thanks.  I won’t need it._

“Oh my god,” Grif groans, and snaps off his radio.  “I fucking swear, they rip these lines right out of old Die Hard movies.”

Simmons falls into step behind Grif, gingerly ducking around some weird wet-looking plants that could very well be slime tentacles or props from some _very_ niche pornos.  “Do you think Tucker’s there?  You think Felix really is torturing him?”

“They’re not playing Monopoly, I can tell you that.”  Grif shoulders past a sapling a little harder than necessary.  “This is _such_ bullshit.  When did we graduate from ‘useless assholes’ to ‘useless assholes that everybody wants to murder?’  Because I’m gonna go back in time and veto that decision.”

“You _can_ just say that you’re worried about Tucker.”

“Which is what I _would_ say, Simmons, if that’s why I was complaining.”  Grif’s gut churns anyway.  He knows none of them have forgotten the look of Tucker’s blood in the dirt.

Simmons shuts up about it for a few minutes, at least.  Then he sighs and shoves a plant out of the way and Grif steels himself for the conversation that he already knows he doesn’t want to have.  “I know if we say this aloud then Wash and probably also Church will try to kill us, but what if we get there and Tucker’s already dead?  It’s not like he knows anything.  If they figure that out, they’ll probably just kill him.”

“Nice, Simmons.  Good to see you keeping up the status quo on optimism.”

“I’m just saying, a plan would be a good idea.”

“No, a plan would be a _stupid_ idea.  Know why?”  Grif carefully skids down a steeper slope, hanging onto tree trunks to keep from falling on his face.  “Because if we get there and Tucker’s dead, certain people are going to lose their shit and I don’t even want to _think_ about dealing with that fallout.  What’re you gonna do when Wash either kills everybody or completely shuts down?  Fuck all, that’s what.  Same as the rest of us.”

“Wash wouldn’t-”

“He would.”

This time, Simmons shuts up for good.

 

* * *

 

Locus stares at the sagging Captain Tucker, bound and only half-restrained against the wall, the other arm hanging uselessly at his side and swelling up impressively.  The man’s barely conscious from pain.  “I told you,” Locus growls, that familiar itch of frustration clawing at his bones and making him want to put his fist into something, “that I wanted him _coherent._ ”

“Ugh, I _heard_ you.”

“I wanted him cognizant for questioning.  That was the _only reason_ we’ve bothered to keep him alive.”

“Listen-”

“Multiple stab wounds, Felix.  _Sloppy._   You were playing.”

Felix holds up a finger.  “Okay.  I was.  _But!_   The broken arm is completely his fault for trying to escape.”

“He only managed to escape because you underestimated him.  _Again._ ” 

“He actually _failed_ to escape, and guess what?  If he hadn’t, we wouldn’t know what this temple does.  So you’re welcome.”

“Do you mean how it _destroyed_ all of our advanced weaponry?”

“All right, fine, yes, _that._   But you weren’t here so you didn’t see all the insane shit that happened _inside._   If just one of the stupid things can _alter gravity,_ what d’you think this one can do at full power?  Fuck, maybe that beam was a giant laser.  We could blow up the goddamn moon.  That’s probably worth going back to bullets.”

Locus pulls at the fraying ends of his patience because devolving into raised voices is how Felix wraps people around his fingers.  He always wins at screaming matches.  Ignoring Felix is usually the best way to go, but how can he ignore _this?_

Control has not been pleased with their progress, or lack thereof.  Superior skill and resources notwithstanding, the armies of Chorus hold two things over them that is consistently proving to be a thorn in their side time and time again.  They have numbers, and they have the Freelancers and Sim troopers.  Felix may not put much stock into the troopers, but Locus knows better.  After that disastrous mission at the jamming tower, they would do well not to dismiss the troopers so easily again.

Except Felix.  Keeps.  _Doing it._

“Thank _god…”_   Locus turns to see Lavernius Tucker stir in his restraints.  The man picks his head up just barely and fixes Locus with a desperate look.  “Thank god you’re here…”

Locus shoots Felix a silencing glare before stepping closer.  Perhaps he can use this.  The Sim troopers likely haven’t received much by way of conditioning.  “I can guarantee he won’t touch you again.  All I need in exchange is your cooperation.”

“Thank god,” Captain Tucker gasps, sagging again.  The inside of his lips are red.  Felix must have done the knife-in-the-mouth trick.  “I need- Please, you have to-”

Excellent.  “Your cooperation-”

“-have to suck my dick.” 

Locus pauses.

“I haven’t- I haven’t gotten laid in so long, man…just open your mouth.  Lovingly put my dick in there.  Don’t even have to swallow, I’m so easy- hahaha, bow chik- _ahh_ , ow ow ow...”

Felix comes up to his side, waving a hand.  “See what I’ve been dealing with?”

 Locus appraises the near-delirious Captain Tucker, who attempts to return his stare with eyes that don’t quite focus.  “Bind his arm,” he orders finally, “and bring him up to the altar.  We’ll discover the extent of his usefulness and then dispose of him.”

“ _Finally_ ,” says Felix, gesturing sharply to the soldiers at the door.  “Thought you wanted to interrogate him though.”

“It’s unlikely he knows anything useful.”  Locus turns on his heel and stalks toward the ramps leading to the center of the structure.  Felix falls into step beside him and Locus notes, with some irritation, that Felix walks a touch more quickly than he does, as if to make sure he’s not overtaken.  “That beam _must_ have been seen by our enemies.  It’s likely they’ll attempt an assault on our location in an effort to recover their friend.”

“Great. We’ll set a trap, bait it with Tucker and spring it when they show up.”

“ _No._   I want us to be ready to wipe them out when they arrive and we can’t do that if you’re wasting your time toying with the prisoner.  We kill him before the assault.”

“God, you have no idea how useful a hostage is, do you?  We keep him alive, we have a reason for them to hold back.  If we jam a knife in Tucker’s throat too soon then we’ll have Mr. Vengeance and Death coming after us like he’s got nothing to lose, not to mention his silverback of a boss.”

“The Freelancers are not our biggest concern.”

“Ohhhh my god, if you say what I think you’re gonna say-”

“We should concern ourselves with the other Sim troopers-”

“ _Sim troopers, Sim troopers,_ Christ on a cracker, Locus!”  Felix stops short and throws up his hands.  When Locus doesn’t give him the courtesy of stopping he hears Felix swear and stomp after him.  “You’re _obsessed!_   First of all the Freelancers _are_ the biggest concern, thank you.  Second of all, _what Sim troopers?_   We’ve got the only mildly effective one in chains, the big stupid one is out of commission- what, are you saying we should be worried about the _Reds?_ ”

Locus stops and half-turns to regard Felix sharply.  “Of course.”

Felix snorts and rolls his helmet.  “ _Enlighten me._ ”

“You may not recall,” Locus says thinly, “but our employer’s identity has been _compromised._   We know that the Freelancers and Blues attempted to retrieve the ship’s manifest from Crash Site Alpha, but failed.  If our enemies were successful in ascertaining Control’s identity, what do you think happened?”

Felix stares at him, arms folded.

“…it means the Reds-”

“ _Shut up,_ I know what you’re getting at,” Felix snaps.  “I just don’t see why that means we should be worried about those losers.”

Locus nods toward the altar when he spots the two soldiers on the ramp, dragging the captain between them.  “We should be concerned,” he warns, “because the Red Simulation troopers always seem to be exactly where they shouldn’t.”

 

* * *

 

Sarge crouches and presses a shoulder to a tree trunk, peering around it.  “Donut, the spy soundtrack ain’t necessary.”

Donut stops humming.  “Don’t you think it adds to the atmosphere though, Sarge?”

Well shit, he’s gotta give the boy that one.  It definitely adds something.  “Alright, well.  Keep it down when we get closer!”

“About that, Sarge.  Didn’t Carolina tell us to stay put?”

“No, Donut, weren’t you listening?  She told us to ‘hold position.’  Which we’re doing!  We’re holding our position as we move it closer!”

“ _Ohhhh._ ”

Sarge can forgive his men a little stupidity once in a while.  And Donut’s a good soldier, always follows orders and tries his hardest.  Sure, he can be a little overbearing and self-righteous, and sure he spends an _unnatural_ amount of time cleaning his cuticles, and _sure,_ he’s dumber than a box of polished rocks, but at the end of the day?

He’s not Grif.

And if that’s good enough for Sarge, that’s good enough for everybody.

“Think of it this way,” Sarge explains patiently, “if we can find out whether or not Aquaman really is in there, we’ll already have the advantage when backup shows up.  Which’ll be another advantage!  We’ll have a _double_ advantage over the enemy, all just because we showed a little initiative.”

Donut grips his rifle and stares at Sarge in awe.  Sarge assumes it’s awe, that’s usually what that particular helmet tilt means.  He sees it all the time from his men whenever he reveals his incredible plans so yes, definitely, must be awe.  “Wow Sarge, you’re _right!_ ”

See that?  _Awe._ “Damn right I’m right!  Now, how’s your ventriloquism?”

There are guard patrols along the outer walls and soldiers stationed at every gate.  Definitely beefed up security.  Sarge had been hoping that beam had done something like, well, cooked them alive in their armor, but at least this way he’ll have the pleasure of roasting their enemies himself.  With his _heated one-liners,_ as he fills their faces with buckshot.  Nice.

He keeps low, just past the edge of the foliage and waits for the signal.  Donut has a handy array of completely useless skills that, when properly utilized, can make him _quite_ the formidable soldier.  Granted, Donut usually doesn’t know how to utilize those skills on his own, but that’s what a brilliant commanding officer is for.  So when Sarge hears Donut throw his voice halfway across the clearing in a truly touching rendition of _My Heart Will Go On,_ he takes advantage of the sudden scramble of the guards to high-tail it over to the wall.

Well.  Hrm.  How does he climb the damn thing?  It’s all smooth metal, it’s not as if-

“-go _Raiders of the Lost Ark_?  I’m pretty much black Indiana Jones.  _You_ guys are getting the melting faces.”

“Yup,” Sarge mutters.  _Confirmed._   Tucker’s in there, and alive enough to be a little shithead to their enemies.  Disregarding every other regrettable thing about Tucker, he really _is_ a decent soldier when he tries (lip notwithstanding) and more importantly, he sasses the enemy with about as much frequency as Sarge tends to prefer.  It’s good to hear his voice.

Even if it cracked a little.

Now that he’s secured, Sarge should really get back to cover before the guards come back from investigating that false musical lead but that would mean willingly leaving Tucker in the hands of the enemy.  Ignoring that Tucker is also sorta maybe his enemy in a vague Blue-ish sort of way (Lord, how far he’s fallen from his Red pride), Sarge can’t abide leaving a man behind when he’s so close.

 _Sarge,_ Donut’s voice whispers desperately in his ear, and Sarge is actually kind of surprised the boy had the foresight to use the radio instead of just yelling across the clearing.  _Sarge, they’re coming back and getting reeeeeal close to you.  You need to get out of there.  I can make a distraction!_

Shit.  “You keep your ass where it is, Donut,” Sarge snaps.  _Shit._   Bless his heart, Donut will do something _truly_ stupid if Sarge gets captured here.  He has to leave Tucker, who has no idea that help is on the way, who might’ve already got his fingernails pulled off or his skin flayed off or might have been forced to watch the entirety of Nicholas Cage’s filmography without any hope of rescue.  Lack of hope will kill a man, almost as sure as Nicholas Cage’s poor acting will.  Even if all Sarge can do is let Tucker know-

-well, of course he can.

“On second thought,” Sarge says, “Donut!  You were in the desert with that damn dirty Blue, right?”

_Sure was, Sarge!  It was pretty great!  We really got to know each other.  Did you know that Tucker has a birthmark riiight on his-_

“ _Nope,_ didn’t know, don’t care.  Now, Donut; what’s the one thing Turquoise likes more than anything else?”

_Ummm…sex?_

“The one thing he can actually _get._ ”

_His kid?_

“Donut- no.  What is the one thing.  You wouldn’t shut up about.  The _entire time_ you were telling me about your fantastic fun-filled field trip with him in the desert?”

_Uhhh…oh!  Oh right, I remember!_

“Atta boy, I knew you could!  Get ready to execute _Operation: Lady Marmalade._ ”

_Oooh, I love O:LM!  You got it Sarge; I’m in position and ready to push forward whenever you’re ready!_

“…right.  Good job, Donut.”

 

* * *

 

His attitude is all he’s got right now.

After that burning, searing pain from his sword (which no, never, he has never wanted to connect ‘a burning feeling’ with ‘my sword’ ever), Tucker knew that his time was limited.  Locus showing up and not even really making an effort to question him cinched it.  That guy, he doesn’t fuck around.  He might not torture people, but it’s almost kind of a bad sign when he _doesn’t._   Means he doesn’t find a use in it.  Which means Tucker is dead.

Two assholes grab him and bind his wrists together and Tucker blacks out for a minute there from the pain.  He wakes up to being dragged up a ramp, then wakes up _again_ being forced to his knees in front of some crazy looking altar thing with floating symbols of light.

“ _Raiders of the Lost Ark,_ ” he mumbles.

His captors apparently take offense to this.  “That movie blows.”

“I thought the reboot was cool.”

“The _reboot?_   It was even worse!  The casting was all wrong-”

“Meekins, who the fuck do you think you are?  _Charlot Jeresford_ played Marion!  If that’s not destined casting-”

“ _Charlot Jeresford_ is a one-trick pony who couldn’t act her way out of a paper-fucking-bag-”

“Holy shit, shut up!”

Again.  Tucker is agreeing with Felix again.  It could be the start of Stockholm.  Hopefully he’ll die before he falls in love with one of these tools.

“Prop him up.  Tucker, c’mon, not even going to pull your own weight?  I barely tortured you.”

What would Wash do in this situation?  Would he spit on somebody?  Indiana Jones would spit on somebody, but then again Indiana Jones gets the shit kicked out of him pretty often.  And doesn’t seem to get tortured for it.  Just kicked around.

Someone’s hand winds around his dreads and yanks his head up, which sucks.  He never touches the things with his gauntlets, they always catch and get all fucked up.  “Are you even in there, loser?” 

Tucker smacks his mouth.  There are so many sores in there, from getting slapped around- is that a cut?  From the knife?  Motherfucker.  Making out is going to be so hard…y’know, if he had anybody to make out _with._   “I can’t spit,” he complains sluggishly.

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I’m thirsty.  Can’t spit.  On your stupid helmet.”  Felix makes a fist in his hair and yanks, and the points of pain in his scalp wake him up.  “Fuck, ow-!  Stop!”

“Hold.  The sword.”

What?  …oh shit, he has the sword hilt in his hand.  The non-broken arm even.  Okay so Locus is holding onto his wrist to make sure he doesn’t do anything, but he hadn’t even _noticed._   He’d been thinking of Indiana Jones.  Apparently they want him to do something here, which is weird because they could always just _make_ him like they’d done below.  Wait, but hadn’t they made him…?  Or had he just grabbed it?

Another yank.  “ _Tucker._   Hold the sword.”

No, that’s right, he wouldn’t let it go.  It won’t work if he’s not _doing_ it.  They can wrap his fingers around it and it still won’t work.  “Suck my dick,” he tests cautiously.  Another yank, but at this point pain is starting to blend together.  Nothing’s as bad as the throbbing in his arm, and so long as he swallows back the nausea he can handle that.  He can handle that.

“If you don’t fucking turn that shit on-”

“Oh ho,” Tucker wheezes, because more than the new pain, the realization that he’s got _leverage_ again sticks hard in his head and wakes him back up.  “Y’know, hair pulling’s my thing.  Do me a favor and ease up, okay?  I might be thirsty, but I’m not _that_ bad.”

Felix strings together some pretty impressive curses that Tucker tries to memorize, if only for Church’s sake (a compilation of numbers and words and he _still_ can’t get more imaginative than ‘fuck you goddammit’ when he’s pissed).  “Are you forgetting something, dipshit?  We can still have your stupid idiot teammate killed right there in his hospital bed.”

“Get Valasquez out of the city and I’ll do it.”  It’s a bluff.  It’s definitely a bluff, but with his renewed vigor comes bravado, and Tucker thinks he might be okay dying here if it means Caboose and Wash are all right.  If he can get that fucker out of the city and back where he can _see,_ can _make sure_ that Caboose is out of danger, then it’ll be fine.  They won’t have another opportunity to sneak someone back in, no way.  And if they do, well, Caboose is a freak of nature; he’ll probably be healed up by then and capable of defending himself.

Felix barks out a surprised laugh.  “You- are you trying to _bargain_ with me, Tucker?  One word and that fucking moron is dead.”

Tucker coughs.  “One word and you never get this temple working.”  Charon had been trying to study them, so they’re important.  And fuck, Tucker doesn’t know what this thing does.  It could make it rain anything from acid to supermodels, he’s got no clue.  But they want it on, and they want it working _bad._   They’re willing to put the sword back in his hand to do it.  It’s simple math; what’s worth more, this temple of immeasurable power or their mole in Armonia?

Maybe he should be worried about how ready he is to give them the temple if it means keeping Caboose alive, but he’ll deal with that later.  He won’t do jack shit until he sees Valasquez’s rat bastard face anyway, so he has some time.

Felix is staring hard at him.  Locus is probably doing the same thing on his right side, but Tucker just stares right back at Felix.  Now would be a great time for some spit.

All four of the assholes hovering over him stiffen suddenly.  Locus nods sharply and the guy holding down Tucker’s shoulders lets go and leaves, boots clomping away.  Tucker tries to twist and watch him but Locus grabs onto the back of his neck, hand way too close to his implants and making his heart pound.  “I’m just trying to get a handle on what you guys expect to happen in here.  I mean, didn’t all your fancy shit blow up?  Do you want _more_ shit to blow up?”

“Enough,” Locus growls, with no input from Felix despite his fist tightening in Tucker’s hair to the point of constant pain.

“I mean, what are you guys planning to do if this really _does_ go _Raiders of the Lost Ark_?  I’m pretty much black Indiana Jones.  _You_ guys are getting the melting faces.”

“Activate.  The sword.”

Tucker decides to risk it just to hear that irritated snarl in Locus’s voice again.  “Call.  Valasquez.  Off.”

Felix lets go of Tucker’s hair and for one pathetic, uplifting moment Tucker thinks he’s managed to get the upper hand.  That he’s finally going to _achieve_ something, that all this pain isn’t for nothing.

Felix touches two fingers to his helmet.  “Valasquez, you copy?  Kill him tonight.”

Tucker’s heart plummets.  “You asshole-”

Felix drops his hand.  “I’m not playing coy with you anymore, Tucker.  You forget that you’re _all_ expendable.”  Felix winds his fingers around Tucker’s hair again and yanks.  “You’ve got until tonight to make a decision.  Either you fucking _work this fucking temple,_ or you have a dead teammate and then I _still_ get to do whatever I want with you.”

“You’re a fucking monster,” Tucker snarls, nausea forgotten, pain hovering in the background behind his rage.  “Fuck you.  You’re never getting _shit_ out of me.  I hope you fucking _do_ kill me, ‘cause then you’ll have Wash and Carolina on your ass so hard you’ll be shitting out your _mouth_ when they kick your fucking skull in.”

“Lot more energetic now, huh?  Put that energy to good use and think your choices over, for once.  Maybe _don’t_ get people killed for your sake this time, try out something new.”  Felix aims a kick at Tucker’s broken arm and he sees white.

When he comes back to there’s vomit spattered over his lap and Locus has his other arm pinned behind his back as he drags him up to his feet.  Tucker sags immediately and Locus yanks him up hard enough that his wounded shoulder screams, though it’s nothing compared to the deep, stabbing burn of his arm.  It feels like there’s blood pouring into his bones, or maybe blood is pouring out?  Is there blood inside your bones?  No, it’s bone marrow, there’s bone marrow bleeding out of his arm, definitely, has to be.

“-is going on?  The _hell_ is that sound?”

“Sir.  We found this just past the treeline.”

_“You don’t have to put on that red light…”_

“Roxanne,” Tucker mumbles, spitting.  There’s the spit.  Tastes like bile and won’t drop from his lips, but there it is.

_(Wow Tucker, I can’t believe you’ve memorized all of Moulin Rouge!_

_Are you kidding me Donut?  The movie is literally **entirely about French hookers.**   I’ve seen that movie so many times my **dick** could sing it.)_

Tucker picks up his head.  His vision swims, but one of the Charon soldiers is holding something up to Felix-  It’s pink and it’s _singing-_

“It’s a _recording,_ you moron, go fucking find him!  Locus, do _not_ tell me 'I told you so.'  I swear to god.”

“Donut,” Tucker whispers.  That’s important.  It swims through his head, Donut, that’s Donut’s helmet, that’s Donut’s singing, how did the Charon soldier get it?  How did they find it?

_You think you’re gonna get rescued._

It’s a message.  They found him.

“Donut,” Tucker says again, a little louder.  They’re here.  They’re nearby, there are Charon soldiers stalking out through the gate to hunt down Donut and whoever else is out there, but they’re _here._   They’re gonna try to rescue him.  If it’s just Donut then he’s screwed, if the rest of the Reds are here he’s just _mostly_ screwed.  If Carolina and Wash are here-

_Then there’s nobody protecting Caboose._

“Donut!” Tucker shouts, and lunges with so much ferocity that he surprises _himself_ as well as Locus.  He gets free and stumbles forward, makes for the gate, he has to _tell them-_   “Donut, Valasquez, call the capitol, they’re gonna kill Caboose!  You gotta-”

A weight slams into his back and he sees the ground rush up toward him before he sees white again.  He’s awake for it this time, gagging on nothing, can’t breathe around the agony of his arm, his shoulder, his jaw and the cuts in his mouth.  Can’t breathe around the adrenaline bleeding out of his bones, around the hope seeping into and out of him, yanking him between desperation and despair so hard he doesn’t even know where the fuck he _is_ anymore.  He’s gonna get rescued.  They’re gonna kill Caboose.  Felix and Locus are gonna kill the Reds.  Wash and Carolina are gonna kill Felix and Locus.  Valasquez is gonna betray Chorus.  Tucker is gonna die.

His heels drag along the ground as he’s pulled away from the gate.  His sword hilt is gone, has _been_ gone.  He’s back inside Blue base at the crash site with Wash lecturing him on cleaning his armor, in the canyon with Church flicking empty bullet casings between his goalpost fingers.  Caboose is yelling about something. 

Caboose is always yelling about something.

 

* * *

 

Caboose doesn’t like staying still.

He’s never liked it, ever since he was a little boy.  His mother used to say he had subtract, or divide or add or something like that.  Being in the middle meant he always had a sister to play with though, someone else who was just as bored as him and wanted to go outside and explore some of the dust caves they were definitely not supposed to go into.

Being in the hospital is not like being told you can’t go into the dust caves.  Being in the hospital is _terrible._

“Doctor Lady?” Caboose asks in his nicest, most absolutely politest voice.

The doctor knows better.  She’s scary smart, and also just plain scary.  “Nope!” she chirps.

Caboose sighs and throws his head back on the pillow so she knows that he’s upset about this.  Maybe if she knows how sad and upset he is, she’ll change her mind.  He sighs again, even harder.

“I wouldn’t do that, you’ll tear your stitches.  And then it’s back under the knife!”

“I do not want to be under anything,” Caboose mutters.  He shouldn’t be mean to the doctor, he knows.  She probably made sure he didn’t die, probably definitely, but right now she’s the person who is making sure he doesn’t go after Agent Washington so they’re not on great terms right now.

“Captain Caboose, I know you feel like you can do so much more, but trust me.  Within ten steps you _will_ fall down in ex- _crutiating_ pain, because you _will_ be bleeding internally.  So please don’t get up again.”

“ _Uggggghhhh,_ ” Caboose groans.

“I know you want to go help your friends-”

“Tucker is not my friend,” Caboose says quickly, just in case she thinks he is by some mistake.  Definitely don’t want that to get around, even if it’s sort of sometimes true.  What if _everybody_ started thinking he and Tucker were good friends?  Gosh.  He’d never hear the end of it.  The end of Tucker’s voice.  Which is annoying.  Especially when he uses it to say annoying things, like ‘Caboose stop doing that,’ or ‘Caboose don’t put that in my bed,’ or ‘Let him go and I’ll come with you.’  Such dumb, stupid, annoying dumb things.

Dr. Grey is giving him looks.  She’s giving him very long looks that make him think of his big sisters and Agent Washington.  “But he is, really.”

“He had a dumb plan,” Caboose insists.  “It was dumb.  He went with Felix so Felix wouldn’t take me.  Which was dumb, Felix does _not_ like Tucker.  He put a knife in him one time.”

“I remember that.”  Dr. Grey sticks some tubes into some other stuff.  “Regardless, you can’t leave.  What you _should_ do is trust in the skills of your fellow soldiers.”  She puts tape back over the needle in his arm.  “Or something like that.”

“ _What if._   I had the green glowy thing.”

“The green-”  The doctor lady stares at him blankly but he’s patient and he waits.  She’s smart, so she doesn’t need to be told things a billion times like other people do.  “ _Oh._  The Freelancer healing unit.  No, I don’t think even that would be enough.  And even if it got you functional, you shouldn’t have it!  Because it’ll give you a false sense of security stacked atop those already _painfully_ suicidal inclinations that seem to be a prerequisite trait to being in Freelancer.  All of you are so ready to die!  It’s fascinating.  And morbid.  And indicative of _so_ many emotional problems!”

“You used too many words to tell me no,” Caboose sulks.

“I did.  Then, no.  You can’t have it.”

Caboose throws his head back into his pillow.  He feels the doctor lady pat his wrist and stand back up.  “Do you feel ready for visitors?”

“I am ready for anything,” he insists, just in case having visitors means he can get up.

“Good, because there’s a line!  And I’m tired of seeing their faces.”  The doctor lady pokes her head out of the door and shrieks, “ _One at a time!_ ” and then she leaves and a cadet comes in and looks at him and starts crying.

And then Caboose has to stay still but is still very busy, because people come in and give him things like flowers and chocolate that they found somewhere and someone tries to give him a cute tiny bottle of whiskey.  When he says _no thank you I do not like it, but you can drink it for me,_ then _she_ starts crying as she opens it and drinks it and there is so much crying, so much.  It’s silly.  Nobody from the canyon cried like this all the time.  Not even Donut, who _loves_ crying.

And then Palomo comes in and he is just, he is crying more than all the crying people who came in before.  It’s ridiculous and Caboose has to take the pillowcase off his pillow and give it to Palomo so he doesn’t get snot all over his hands.

“Thanks Captain Caboose,” Palomo blubbers, and then cries into the pillowcase.

“You are crying too much,” Caboose informs him politely, just in case he’s not aware.

“I’m just so worried about Captain Tucker!”  Palomo sobs into his hands.  Caboose reaches over and pats him on the knee.  “Do you think he’ll die?  He won’t die, would he?”

“Probably not, Palmetto.  Agent Washington and Agent Carolina and Church and the Reds are going to get him,” Caboose says, feeling more than a little disgruntled.  Everybody except for him.  They are leaving him out, which is _mean._   He plucks up the neck of his hospital gown to glare at the bandages and stitches.  Dumb stomach, being all shot.  If his stomach hadn’t been in the way of the bullets, then he could go get Tucker and tell him how stupid he was.

“Ah- yeah, you’re right, but sir…you know my name is _Palomo,_ right?”

“Of course I know.”

“Oh.  Okay, so like, is this like _hazing_ or…?”

Caboose sits up suddenly.  And then he lies back down, because that really hurt.

“Oh geez, are you okay, I’ll go get the doc-”

“No,” Caboose wheezes, holding the hurt part of him and also holding onto Palomo’s wrist to keep him from leaving and getting the doctor lady.  “No.  Listen.  I have a really good idea, Palmetto.”

“Palomo…?”

“Do you want to help get Tucker back?”  When Palomo nods, Caboose sits up much more carefully than the first time.  “Okay.  I need you to help me get the green glowy thing.”

“The what?”

“The Freelancer thing,” Caboose explains impatiently.  He doesn’t know when the doctor lady will come back and check on him, so he has to be fast.  If he has the glowing thing then he can get better faster and leave quicker and go help get Tucker.  They will need his help.  They always need his help, especially when he isn’t there to give it to them.

“I have no idea what thing you’re talking about.”

“I know what he’s talking about.”

Caboose jerks his head up and sees Valasquez in the doorway.  “You know the thing!”

“The Freelancer healing unit, right?”  Valasquez smiles.  “I can get it for you.”

“You would go get it for me?”  Now _Caboose_ feels like crying and he is all out of pillowcases.  “Ah- you are so nice Vasquez!”

“Valasquez.”

“Vicks Vapor Rub.”

“Okay that’s not even _close,_ ” Palomo points out.

“Listen Vic,” Caboose says urgently, and Valasquez leans forward to listen just as urgently.  “I need the glowing thing so I can get better and go save Tucker.  Can you get it and bring it here?”

Palomo clears his throat.  “Um, but don’t the _Freelancers_ have the Freelancer equipment?  And they’re gone.”

Valasquez looks thoughtful.  That’s good; Caboose knows when people look thoughtful, it’s because they’re thinking of a solution to a big problem.  “It’s possible they left it behind, just in case you needed it.  I can check the armory and see if it’s there.”

“Great!”

“But, Captain.”  Valasquez looks at the door nervously.  “I really don’t want to get caught going against the doctor’s orders, so could you meet me in the armory instead tonight?  Then we can figure out how to use it and heal you up.”

Caboose nods as hard as he can without getting more hurt, even though Palomo looks upset.  “It’s okay Palmetto,” he tells him, because it is.  There’s nothing bad about that plan.  “Please don’t tell anybody.”

“It’s okay Captain.  If it’s to save Captain Tucker, I’m sure Lieutenant Palomo would be happy to help.”  Valasquez squeezes Palomo’s shoulder and Caboose smiles.  Friends are nice to have.

Friends are not as nice to _save,_ because they shouldn’t be in trouble in the first place, but Tucker is probably too stupid to know that.  Caboose will have to make sure to tell him when he and Agent Washington and Church bring him back home.


	5. Chapter 5

_You did **what?**_

_I **told** you to **hold position**._

_Wow, could you two be **any** stupider?_

Donut winces as he jams Sarge’s helmet over his head, casting a reproachful look at the other soldier. In hindsight, he should’ve been more suspicious when Sarge had jerked off his helmet and shoved it at Donut with little more than a, “You explain.”

Wash’s voice cuts through the radio chatter in a way that has everyone else falling silent. _Sarge. What. **Happened?**_

“Come on, Wash,” Donut says soothingly. “Don’t be _mad!_ ”

_Donut. **Why** are you speaking on Sarge’s frequency?!_

Donut gives some serious side-eye to Sarge, who is belly down in the dirt with his shot propped up. The side-eye falls a little flat, given that Sarge can’t even see his face, but Donut thinks he got the point across well enough. “Sarge is keeping watch,” he says. “He gave me his helmet so that I could tell you Tucker’s here and you have to come _quick!_ ”

 _So that you could do the dirty work, more like,_ Grif cuts in. _Clever bastard._

 _I **meant,** where is your **helmet?**_ Wash asks through gritted teeth.

_Why, the mercs have it, I suspect! I had to leave it behind to play the song, **didn’t** I?_

_Obviously,_ Grif says. _Makes total sense. **Genius** move._

_Oh, **Grif,** we had to let him know we were coming for him! _

_You’re **sure** Tucker’s there?_ Carolina asks for the third time.

Donut rolls his eyes. _Yes, I’m sure! I heard him!_

_Wait, you actually heard him speak? What did he say?_

There it is. Wash’s voice spikes frantic and high, but it’s at least far better than the flat, cold note. “Well, at first he was just sassing the bad guys, but I think I heard him yell my name after he heard the song. I think he was trying to tell me something.”

_Trying to tell you **what?**_

“I don’t know. We were a little too far away to make it out—we had to get out of there pretty quick—but he didn’t….” Donut hesitates. “He didn’t sound good.”

 _That was pretty risky, what you guys did_ , Simmons says nervously. _I mean, what if they decide that since we’re all on our way, there’s no point in….you know…_

Donut is grateful that Sarge chooses that moment to wrestle his helmet back, although he _does_ wish he was a bit gentler about it. “Ouch—Sarge! Be careful, you’re hurting my ears!”

Sarge jams the helmet back on his head and, presumably, starts yapping away. Donut sighs and gets down on his belly next to Sarge, surveying the temple below. He and Sarge had found a rocky cliff—more of a glorified hill, really—a quarter of a mile away. Donut had almost broken his neck three times climbing up it, but he has to admit it was a good find. It gave them a perfect vantage point to keep an eye on the temple and the activity around it. Unfortunately, Donut is pretty certain that the number of enemy soldiers multiplies every time he glances down there.

After another few minutes, Sarge reaches up to snap off his radio. “They’re on their way,” he says to Donut. “The Dynamic Duo’s moppin’ up any potential tattletales before they come meet back up with us.”

Donut perks up. “Oooooh, good! And then we’re gonna bust Tucker out, right?”

“That’s the plan,” Sarge says. “Everyone else has the rendezvous points and are skipping their way through the jungle now. Twenty bucks says Agent Dramalancer finds a way to sprout wings and fly here.”

“You don’t…you don’t think they’re going to kill him because they know we’re coming, do you?” Donut asks nervously. “I mean…that won’t happen, right?”

“’Course it won’t happen!” Sarge says breezily. He does a double take at Donut and sighs. “Don’t you start too.”

“I’m not _starting!_ ” Donut protests. “I just….”

He trails off, glancing down at the tower below. The soldiers are definitely multiplying. “He just didn’t _sound_ good, ya know? Do you…do you think they’re doing just _awful_ things to him?”

“Yup,” says Sarge. “Oh, don’t look at me like that, cupcake. Soldier up! This is war! Torture and maiming are all a part of the game! Aquaman knows we’re coming, thanks to our genius plan. He’s a tough cookie, and we’ll be in there with guns blazing soon enough.”

“Okay,” Donut says, and sniffs back the well of oncoming tears. Sarge makes a noise of despair. “Thanks, Sarge. I feel much better now.”

“Well, thank god for that,” Sarge mutters, and if it’s a bit over the top with the sarcasm, Donut doesn’t mind.

 

* * *

 

“This is a waste of time,” Carolina grouses, even as she ducks around a corner to hide from a patrolling pirate.  “We should just go straight to Sarge and Donut.”

 _And do what with those dead guards?_ Church snaps, laying out the quickest course for a takedown.  Carolina follows most of it –elbow, instep, chop to the throat- before catching the merc around the chestplate and lowering him down quietly.  _If we don’t clean up here they’ll call back and those bozos will be even **more** prepared to handle us.  No offense, but you leave a signature.  They’ll know to expect you._

As much as she hates to admit it, Church is right.

_Damn right I’m right._

Carolina is about to haul the merc’s body beneath a dense patch of foliage when Church’s avatar winks on at her shoulder.  “Hang on.  Get this joker’s helmet off, I think I can patch into their comms.  Might be movement orders.”

“I agree.  Crippling their reinforcements would be worth the detour.”  Getting to Tucker won’t mean shit if they get boxed in by approaching soldiers before they can get him out.  Carolina wrenches the merc’s helmet off and searches for the manual radio controls.  “You getting it?”

Church disappears.  _Yeah, gimme a sec._

It takes longer than a second, but Carolina’s readout fritzes suddenly and she jerks.  “Church-”  Radio chatter plays over her speakers and Carolina quiets immediately, though she pushes forward that feeling of _impatient concern_ in Church’s general direction until he acknowledges it with his own equally impatient _shut up and pay attention._  

_“-they under attack already?”_

_“Didn’t say.  Orders just stated for all units to pull out and head for the temple.”_

_“What, on **foot?** ”_

_“You got a better idea?”_

_“What if we run into opposition?”_

_“Engage if we outnumber the sim troopers, but avoid contact with the Freelancer parties.”_

_“Well thank fuck for that.”_

_“Get going, we’ll meet up with the team at Outpost Phi and go together.”_

_“We waiting for Valasquez?”_

A shot of cold stabs down Carolina’s spine.  It could just be a coincidence.  Church hums in the back of her mind as he begins to frantically filter through memories and onboard personnel records.

_“No breaking cover unless you get compromised, so probably not.”_

“Tell me they’re not talking about the Valasquez in the capital,” Carolina whispers.

_Fuck, I don’t know, I’m checking._

_“All right.  Hey Dickerson, you copy or what?”_

“Church,” Carolina hisses.  “Cover.”

_Shit- I don’t have enough-_

The chatter cuts abruptly and Carolina leaps down from the outer wall into the trees, slapping on camouflage just in time for a squadron of four soldiers to round the corner of the structure, weapons up.  She tenses, fingers flexing near the pistols at her hips before Church pulses a strong _NO_ right into her nervous center.

“ _What,_ ” she snarls.  “I can take them!”

_They already saw that his helmet’s off; they’re going to warn Valasquez.  We need to contact Armonia **now.**_

“I take them out, we get inside and use their radio,” Carolina growls.

_They’ll have it encrypted.  It’ll take too long to crack._

“We’ll call for the Pelican.”

_No time!  It would be faster for you to run and get into range!_

“If they call this in back to Felix and Locus-”

 _That doesn’t **matter!**_ Church buzzes in her skull like an angry hornets’ nest, agitated and scared. _We need to get this info to Armonia- Carolina, Wash said the soldier he asked to keep an eye on Caboose was one from their mission._

Carolina was the one who made those assignments.  She remembers the list like the back of her hand; with how badly the mission had gone wrong she’d poured over the list, agonized over whether there was something she could’ve done _better_ to prevent it.  Tucker had complained that he didn’t work well with Caboose, but Carolina wondered if maybe there was another issue she’d overlooked.

Tucker cares too much.

The realization that Caboose could easily die after everything that’s happened, after what Tucker did to keep him _safe_ tears into her heart like an icepick.  She knows it’s not just her head filling with that familiar howling, empty dread, like looking out of a freighter window and seeing nothing but black.  “…I copy.”

Carolina moves so fast that everything blurs.

 

* * *

 

For the first time in his life, Washington finds himself desperately hoping that he is caught in a nightmare.

He _prays_ for it, prays that any moment he’ll hit the floor and wake tangled up in his sheets to Caboose hitting him with a pillow and Tucker standing in the doorway, sighing heavily and _Jesus dude you’re gonna wake the whole fucking base, Caboose give him some goddamned room already, c’mon I stole some beers from Grif let’s go have some—_

Deep down, Wash knows he’s not dreaming. The nightmares are, somehow, far brighter and more vivid than real life. Now, everything is pale and fuzzy as if he’s looking at it through water. This is real, and far, far worse than any nightmare, because—

_Sometimes he feels like every decision he makes is the wrong one—_

Wash falters in his determined stalk through the forest to put a steadying hand on the nearest tree. He allows himself one second to suck in a breath before pressing on. There’s no time for him to fall to pieces, because that won’t help Caboose _or_ Tucker. They need him. They both need him, and he _isn’t there_. He _left_ Caboose. He isn’t getting to Tucker _fast_ enough.

_Valasquez is a mole.  We’re headed back to Armonia to warn them.  Start the operation without us._

He’d left Caboose with Valasquez.  He’d _grabbed that bastard’s shoulder_ and squeezed like he would for a comrade, for a _friend_ and just handed Caboose over, just like that.  Reckless.  He should’ve checked first; a mole makes so much sense, answers so many questions.  He hadn’t even stopped to wonder how Felix managed to find Tucker and Caboose before he did, how he’d even _gotten_ into that part of the city, and now-

No.  _Focus._   “Focus,” Washington mutters to himself.  Tucker. He has to focus on Tucker. Half of his instincts are still screaming at him to run back to the capital as fast as he can, but he knows that he has to move forward. If Carolina can’t get there in time, no one can.

For the first time, it occurs to him that he might actually lose them both.

A cold wave of fear washes over him, seeping into every crack and crevice in his brain. He shoves the fear down hard, but lets the cold stay, lets it solidify into a hard, determined fury. _He didn’t sound good,_ Donut had whispered, and ever since Wash had been turning those words over in his mind obsessively, mulling over the questions he’d wanted to hurl at Donut.

 _What does that mean?_ _Did he sound like he was in pain? Were his words slurred? Was he panicked? Angry? Afraid?_

He can’t let himself think about what they might find when they got there but he does anyway, the thought of Tucker’s lifeless body blooming vividly in his brain.

 _He’s not dead yet,_ Wash reminds himself. _Donut heard him. Donut heard his voice. There’s still time._

Wash clutches tightly to his battle rifle and focuses on the temple. It’s not far now, not far at all. He’s no sooner rechecking the coordinates on his HUD for the rendezvous point when the unmistakable voices of Donut and Sarge filter over to him. Their red and pink armor flashes through the trees and as Wash gets closer, he notices that _neither_ one of them is wearing Sarge’s helmet. He grits his teeth and stalks up to them. “Be _quiet!_ If you two—”

They both jump and spin to face him, bringing their guns up to bear. “Are you trying to give a man a heart attack?” Sarge snaps, far louder than Wash thinks is really necessary.

Wash glares at them. “Glad to see that you two are paying attention. What if I’d been a Charon soldier?  You would both be dead.”

“If you were a Charon soldier we’d be laying the smackdown on you right now! Do you take me for a—”

“Sarge, put your _helmet_ on and let’s _go_. Donut, you’re staying here.”

“Ummmmmmmm….” Donut glances around nervously. “I mean, I’m not saying that’s a bad idea, except—”

“Except it’s a bad idea,” Sarge says bluntly. “That temple is crawling with mercs! As much as I’d like to charge on in guns blazing, this isn’t a two man rescue mission—”

“Fine,” Wash says coldly, already starting forward. “I’ll do it myself.”

Sarge gets a hand round his shoulder guard and yanks him back so hard that Wash stumbles. “Now hold on just a second there, Agent Washington. If you get yourself killed it’s not going to help you _or_ Tucker. Just sit your kiester down and hang tight for a second!”

“We don’t have a second!” he tries to wrench his arm out of Sarge’s grip, but to no avail. “ _Sarge_ —”

“Wash, it’s okay.” Donut smiles at him earnestly. “It’ll be _okay!_ As soon as the others get here, we’ll _go_.”

Wash grits his teeth hard. He needs to get a grip. He busies himself by opening the radio and snapping, “Where the hell are the rest of you?”

 _Oh boy,_ Grif says. _I see you’ve upped the melodrama since last we spoke._

“Just answer the question.”

 _We’ll be there in five minutes,_ Simmons interjects quickly. _Not far at all._

“Same with us,” Andersmith chimes in.

_Well, hurry up. We need to get in there as soon as possible._

He spends the next five minutes pacing back and forth until Grif and Simmons come crashing through the underbrush, followed less than thirty seconds later by Andersmith and Bitters. “Be quiet!” Wash hisses, as Grif manages to step on every single fallen twig and leaf in his path.

Grif casts him an affronted look. “Uhhh, in case you haven’t noticed, we are walking through the _forest_ in _power armor_.”

“We’re working on stealth when we get back,” Wash snaps. He takes a deep breath, glancing around at all of them. “Now. Let’s get a plan together, and get in there.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Carolina?” Simmons asks. “I mean, no offense to you or anything, but two Freelancers are better than one, right?”

Wash closes his eyes briefly. “What don’t you all understand about the fact that we don’t have time to waste here?”

“Precise-a-mundo!” Sarge barks.  “Simmons, we got along just fine Freelancer-free all these years!  Besides, you heard the little lady.  She and the glowbug’ll be here soon as they finish up their mole-mining expedition.”

“I still can’t believe Valasquez is a mole,” Donut moans.  “I mean, beauty marks aside, moles are just so _unsightly!_   Nothing like a spy.”

“That’s exactly like a spy,” Grif points out.

“You don’t think Valasquez would _really_ go after Caboose, do you?”

“Stop,” Washington snaps, rifle creaking in his hands.  “ _Stop._   Enough.  While all of you are standing around bantering, Tucker is being tortured.  So _shut.  Up._ ”

Simmons and Grif exchange what’s likely a significant look, but Washington’s moved beyond caring.  Let them think he’s close to snapping.  They’re not far from the truth. 

“Agent Washington is right,” Andersmith finally supplies.  “I’m worried for my captain as well, sirs, but- I won’t want to presume anything, but we should get down there as soon as possible.”

Bitters shoulders his rifle.  “We _do_ still need a plan.”

Wash nods curtly.   _Finally._ He doesn’t know if he could’ve handled it if any of the Reds went off on another of their infamous tangents.  “Let’s take a look at that temple.”

They edge through the trees—no quieter than before, Wash notes in disapproval—until they come to the edge of a rocky hill. The temple is sprawled out before them, and Wash’s heart sinks. Not only is it huge—Tucker could be _anywhere_ —but the place is absolutely crawling with soldiers.

Grif clears his throat. “So, uh. Anyone got any ideas here?”

 

* * *

 

Bluffing. He’s bluffing. _He has to be bluffing._

Tucker tells himself this, over and over, as the seconds stretch by into agonizing minutes. The guards had dragged him back over to the altar and bound his hands to some fancy fucking statue, which felt super great on his broken wrist, thanks. His hands are secured in front of him, but low enough to the ground that he can’t stand. He drifts in and out of consciousness, jerking himself awake each time with frantic reminders of what he is and what’s happening. Felix won’t do it. He won’t kill Caboose. If he does, then he knows Tucker isn’t going to cooperate. That’s important, because they want something in this temple, and they want it bad, but Tucker can’t quite remember…

His sword. They want him to hold his sword, which makes the temple do…something. He can’t _let_ them do the _something._ He has like, a duty to this world or some bullshit.  Such bullshit.  Taking a knife apparently isn’t enough, now he’s gotta withstand torture.  He’s like fucking Bond.  Or.  Or someone who…withstands torture.  Like Wash.

Fuck.

Tucker’s thoughts slip sluggishly from his fingers, like gathering wet spaghetti with a spoon. He can do this. He can shove down the panic and the fear and he can _do this._   He’s just gotta think.  He just-

“Hey, sleeping beauty. Wake the fuck up.”

Tucker jolts awake at the sound of Felix’s voice and tries to focus his eyes. Felix has dropped to one knee in front of him and is waving his hand in front of Tucker’s face. “Come on now, Tucker. I need you awake here.” He taps the sword on the ground before dropping it on the ground between the two of them. “Let’s go. Time for you to stop fucking around.”

“M’not doing it,” Tucker mumbles, even as Felix forces the sword into his hand and wraps his armored fingers around Tucker’s. “M’ _not_. You can go _fuck_ yourself.”

Something drops out of Felix’s voice, some of his usual casual, smarmy nonchalance, turning his tone dark and ugly. “Tucker, I am not screwing around with you. Either you activate this temple or I have your stupid teammate killed right the fuck now. This is your last chance.”

“You kill Caboose and I’m not doing _shit,_ ” Tucker grits out. “I _t…told_ you, get Valasquez back here and if I see his fucking face I’ll do it.”

His thoughts are fuzzy and disjointed and he doesn’t even know at this point if the decision he’s making is the right one, but it’s all he’s got. He’s committed.  He stares into Felix’s visor, trying to mask the uncertainty in his own eyes, and after a moment, Felix stands abruptly.

“Fine,” Felix says with a shrug, and amplifies the speakers on his helmet. “Fine. Hey Valasquez? You there?”

“I’m here.”

“Oh, good.” Felix swings around to look at Tucker. “Kill him.”

“No,” Tucker says, quietly at first, then louder, “NO! You fucker, don’t you—”

“Sorry, what was that?” Felix touches a hand to the helmet and casts an annoyed look at Tucker. “Now, _Tucker_. If you can’t _shut the fuck_ up and be a good audience, I’ll shut you up myself.”

“Fuck you,” Tucker spits. “Fuck you, just— _look_ —just fucking leave Caboose _out of it_ —”

Before Tucker can utter another word of protest Felix moves swiftly behind him, wrapping one arm around his chest and slamming the other hand over Tucker’s mouth hard enough that Tucker swears he feels the teeth rattle in his head. Tucker thrashes hard in Felix’s grip but he can’t get his hands up high enough to get any leverage and even if he could he’s useless with this broken wrist _, useless_ —

“Now,” Felix says, his voice low in Tucker’s ear. “You just shut the fuck up and listen hard. I don’t want you to miss a _single second._ ”

Tucker struggles to no avail.  Felix clears his throat. “Alright, Valasquez, do it. Keep your radio on, will ya? I want Captain Tucker to hear everything.”

“You got it,” Valasquez says, and there’s the sound of a door creaking open.

 _Wait,_ Tucker screams against Felix’s hand, muffled and tiny for lack of air. _Wait, wait wait, I’ll tell you anything, I’ll do anything, just don’t, just don’t—_

Felix’s hand is clamped down too tightly over Tucker’s mouth for him to even _speak_ and Tucker may as well be unconscious for all the good his struggling is doing.  But he has to tell him- he has to- fuck duty, fuck the planet-

 _Oh, good!_ Caboose’s voice bubbles over the radio. _You brought the glowing thing! I, ah, I thought maybe you forgot._

 _Of course I didn’t forget,_ Valasquez says, in that infuriatingly calm voice that used to actually _reassure_ Tucker on missions and now makes him feel sick to his stomach. _Friends don’t break their promises._

 _Don’t you dare use that word with him,_ Tucker thinks, vision going red at the edges.  Manipulative piece of _shit,_ everybody knows Caboose thinks he’s friends with the entire world- everybody knows- everybody-

 _Yes, that is very true_ , Caboose says. _Now, um. Where is Palomo?_

 _Palomo should be here any moment,_ Valasquez says. _He has your armor. We’ll get you into it and then—_

 _Then we can go,_ Caboose says, _and tell Tucker how stupid he was—_

Panic explodes in the center of Tucker’s skull and sends him clawing desperately at Felix’s arm. He broken wrist screams its protest, and the rope prevents him from getting a solid grip around Felix’s hands, but he tries anyway. This isn’t happening—what is Caboose _thinking_ , coming to rescue him when he’s got a fucking _hole_ in his gut—

Palomo’s voice cuts in next, sounding, Tucker notes with growing hysteria, just a touch unsure. _Soooooo, I’ve been thinking, like—maaaaaybe Captain Caboose should stay here and you and I could go rescue Tucker…_

 _That might be a better idea,_ Valasquez says thoughtfully. _Hmm. Thanks, Palomo._

_Yeah, it—oh my god holy shit!_

There’s a spectacular crash.

_Valasquez!  That was a not nice thing to do to Palomo!  I mean I know he can be sort of annoying sometimes but-_

He’s losing it, he knows, losing all semblance of control over the situation, but he doesn’t _care_ , it doesn’t _matter_ —Caboose is about to die, and he can’t do anything, can’t do anything, _can’t do anything-_

 _What would Wash do?_ Tucker thinks, his mind swooping and whirling, spinning, churning, he has to think- _Think, think, think._

Wash would probably bust out some super-secret Freelancer ninja moves and be out of this situation in two seconds flat. Tucker doesn’t have super-secret ninja moves. He only has a broken wrist and a battered chest and ten billion stab wounds and a super badass sword that is of absolutely no use to him.

_Sorry Captain.  It’s nothing personal._

_What’s not?_

Tucker’s heart pounds in his chest, his throat, his fingertips and toes. Guilt and desperation worm their way into every cell and vessel, and he thrashes, his curses and yells coming out in pathetic little whimpers against the Felix’s armored hand.   _Caboose!  Get the fuck out of there already you fucking idiot!_

Felix pulls him backwards even more tightly, the points of his armor digging painfully into Tucker’s spine.  “Shhhhhhhh,” he breathes, his voice coming inches from Tucker’s ear, and Tucker recoils away from the sound. “Shhhh, Tucker.  It’s okay.  It’s okay."

**BANG.**

Tucker jumps. 

For the past half-decade, all he’s heard is a constant stream of gunfire.  The pop of a handgun is as common as a doorbell ring.  The quiet-boom of a bomb detonating, the sizzling hiss of plasma fire, the rumble and _chk-thoom_ of cannonfire, all common, all known, all unsurprising in a war zone.

What startles him is the soft _thump_ of a body hitting the ground.

_Mission accomplished, sir._

Valasquez’s voice comes clear and cold over the radio, the only tone in a sea of silence.

“Good work,” Felix says.  His arm gets tighter.  Or it doesn’t.  Tucker can’t breathe. “Cover that up somehow if you can; make it look like the moron accidentally shot himself or something, I don’t care.”

“I copy. Valasquez out.”

The radio cuts out and takes half of Tucker’s heart along with it.

He freezes in Felix’s grip momentarily before the shaking starts. A scream of horror claws its way up his throat and catches there, the _NOOOOOOO_ unable to fully escape. Tucker jerks wildly—he has to scream, he can’t keep this in, he needs it out, out, _out_ —

Felix finally lets him go, shoving Tucker hard to the ground. He doesn’t bother to hide the howl that escapes, couldn’t even if he wanted to. Tucker retches as he catches himself on his bound hands, cutting off the scream as his broken wrist protests the blow. It doesn’t matter. _Nothing_ matters except ripping Felix apart with his bare hands. He turns blindly, rage painting his vision red, groping for Felix. He forgets that Felix is in power armor and Tucker is in nothing but Kevlar, forgets that he’s hurt, badly, that he’s alone and surrounded and probably two seconds from dying. He thinks only of Caboose, _dead_ , because of him, because he fucked up, _again_ —dead, at the hands of this monster here. He’s going to kill Felix, kill _everyone_ in this temple, kill them _all—_

He doesn’t get much farther past lunging towards the steel and orange armor. The rope still binding his wrists pulls tight and his vision whites out for a moment as Locus is there suddenly, grabbing him by the shoulder, fingers digging into the knife wound. His shoulder feels hot and wet and Tucker’s pretty sure it’s bleeding again, which can’t be good, he’s lost a lot of blood and that can’t be good, but it doesn’t matter, all that matters is that Caboose is dead, dead, _dead._

“You fucker,” he gasps, wrenching hard in Locus’s grip _,_ Caboose is dead and it’s _his fault._ “You motherfucker! I’m gonna—let me go, _let me_ _go!_ I’m gonna rip you apart and fuck your _fucking corpse_ —”

“Charming, as always,” Felix says, sounding bored. _Bored._ Like he didn’t just make Tucker listen to the murder of one of his oldest friends— _like he didn’t—_

“ _You motherfucker_ ,” Tucker says again, the pain and disbelief and horror quickly melting to grief, to fury, to grief again. “You—you fucking—you didn’t have to do that, you _didn’t_ —I would’ve—you didn’t have to fucking _kill_ him—”

He cuts himself off, biting his lip so hard that he probably draws blood. It’s hard to tell at this point. It doesn’t _matter_ at this point. He messed up big time, and he is going to have to explain to everyone, explain to Wash that he fucked it up. His stomach twists as he imagines Wash’s face, everyone’s face, and the way that Church is going to pretend that he doesn’t care, before he remembers that he’s never going to see Wash or Church, or Carolina, or the stupid Reds again, because he’s going to die here.

He’s going to _die_ , and he couldn’t even keep Caboose alive while doing it.

Felix drops to a knee in front of him; Tucker doesn’t even flinch when he grabs his face.  “See, that’s the thing you don’t get.  Sure, I didn’t _have_ to kill him, but,” Felix gently tilts Tucker’s chin up, “I really, _really_ wanted to.”

_Monster._

“I’m gonna kill you,” Tucker whispers. He doesn’t trust his voice not to crack if he speaks any louder. “I wanna make that crystal _fucking_ clear. _Just this once._ I’m going to kill you.”

“Whatever,” Felix says. “If you think that—”

“The _sword_ , Felix,” Locus says impatiently.

“Ohhhh, right right.” Felix glares at someone out of Tucker’s line of sight. “Uh, hello? Today?”

Tucker feels the sword pressed into his palm and he laughs. It’s an unhinged, half-sobbing thing, ragged as he desperately tries to keep a hold of sanity. “You’re kidding, right?”

Felix tuts. “Locus, wrap his fingers around the goddamn hilt and squeeze already!”

“Do you think I haven’t been doing that?”

And he has. Felix still has Tucker’s head tilted up and he can’t quite see what’s going on, but he can feel Locus’s hand over top of his. Joke’s on him. The temple is cold and still, and will remain so unless he applies pressure himself.  It’ll be locked until the end of fucking time, for all Tucker cares.

“You overplayed your hand, asshole,” Tucker rasps.  His chest burns with something not quite righteous fury; it’s sick and dark and far, far too empty.  “You fucking lost. I’m not doing shit—you’re never getting this temple lit up, never. I don’t give a fuck, I don’t—”

He chokes his words off into a scream as Locus does something to his broken arm, the blinding, consuming pain of it bubbling in his stomach and leaving him gagging. He blacks out again, but because his body won’t let him just pass the fuck out already he wakes up less than a minute later to Felix’s visor inches from his face. “Tucker, if you don’t hold this fucking sword I _swear to god_ —”

“You’ll....you’ll what?” Tucker pants. Felix is swimming in his vision. “Kill me? Fucking go ahead. You fucked it up, you lost your only leverage."

“Leverage, huh?” Felix says, straightening thoughtfully. “ _Huh._ Well then. Guess I’m gonna have to go find myself some more.”

Tucker immediately sags as Felix lets go of his jaw and walks towards the gate. “And just what the hell is the hold up here?” Felix snaps. “Find me the stupid pink one or the even stupider red one, fuck! They have to be around here somewhere!”

“We’ve looked everywhere, sir…”

“Well, look harder! _Jesus Christ_ , find me someone to torture or I’ll do it to every last one of you instead!” Felix throws a glance back at Tucker. “Let’s see how many of his friends _Captain Tucker_ can get killed on his behalf before he decides to cooperate.”

There’s something funny happening to his vision.  It takes Tucker a minute to realize that he’s shaking so hard his teeth are chattering. Shock, it must be shock—he was shaking just like this after he’d taken that knife to the gut at the radio tower. He’s cold, too, and that’s not good; he shouldn’t be cold while wearing his survival suit. Then again, it’s probably all fucked up from the ten thousand knife cuts Felix made all over it. Fuck, where is he gonna get another one of these things? Not to mention new armor?

 _Oh, right,_ he thinks deliriously, as he’s hauled back to his feet. He doesn’t need new armor, because he’s going to die. Blood loss, or more fucking torture, or just the sheer pain of it—Tucker’s not sure what it’ll be in the end, but something’s going to kill him.

“Take him back to the interrogation chamber,” Felix says to the guards.

“Torture dungeon,” Tucker corrects, but he’s not sure if they understand him at this point. He sags heavily against the guard holding him up. The pain that lances through him as the guard tugs him harshly forward seems to take a while to fully register, and _that’s_ not good, either.

As the guard half drags him out of the room, Tucker notes with surprise that there’s blood streaked all over the alter and the floor where he’d been kneeling. There’s a lot of it, but it can’t all be his, can it? He’s not even sure where it’s all coming from. A quick glance at his broken arm confirms that it’s not bleeding, although it sure as fuck feels like it. He’s frankly amazed that there’s no bones sticking out, but it shouldn’t be bent at that angle. It _definitely_ shouldn’t be bent at that angle, it shouldn’t, it _shouldn’t_ , it’s broken, it _hurts_ , Caboose is dead and he’s going to die too—

Tucker’s head cracks against metal as he’s shoved back against the wall, his good arm chained back above his head. Felix is there, Tucker notes with surprise, had he been there the whole time?

“Hey. Tucker?” Felix taps his chin up. “Stay with me, okay? I need you awake for this next part. Gonna find one of your stupid friends and bring them in here so you can watch me flay them alive. Unless you’d like to cooperate?”

“Go fuck yourself,” he manages, and Felix shrugs.

“Fine. Have it your own way.”

The pain that comes next is so intense that Tucker thinks he should be dead, should at least be unconscious, but all it does is wake him back up, _again_. Felix takes his broken arm and chains that one above his head as well. It’s so swollen that the metal cuff just barely fits around it, a constant, agonizing pressure against the break. Everything is strangely muffled, and he thinks that he is screaming, he thinks Felix is saying something but he can’t tell, his ears aren’t working properly.

“Fuck,” Tucker finds himself saying, as sound comes back to him slowly, “fuck, _don’t_ , that hurts, that _hurts,_ that _fucking hurts!_ ”

Felix watches him for another moment—he probably gets off on that sort of thing—before tapping his cheek. “Don’t worry, Tucker. I’ll be back soon enough.”

He exits, leaving Tucker alone. Tucker’s whole body is trembling, and his legs keep giving out as he teeters on the very edge of unconsciousness. The pressure that this puts on his broken arm whenever his body goes limp is unbearable, and before long he’s panicking, trying desperately to remain on his feet, to not pass out. He’s going to die. He’ll go crazy from pain first.  Felix is going to bring every single one of his friends in here and make Tucker _watch_ as he kills them. He killed Caboose. He killed Caboose but it’s Tucker’s fault, all his fault. Carolina shouldn’t have paired them on missions, it was stupid, it was _unsafe_ , he couldn’t keep Caboose safe, he couldn’t do the _one_ thing that mattered and Caboose is sniffling back in the canyon because he cut his thumb open and they have biofoam but not a fucking _bandaid_ so Tucker finds a towel and wraps it around Caboose’s thumb and holds it there until the bleeding stopped and Jesus Caboose what did you even cut yourself on anyway you have to be more careful you’re gonna really hurt yourself, don’t touch that don’t play with that it isn’t safe

it isn’t safe

_it isn’t safe-_


	6. Chapter 6

_Rookie, Jesus Christ!  Get down from there- no fuck, don’t **jump** you moron!  Fucking hell- idiot, do you wanna die?  I can’t believe you’re what the army’s recruiting now.  No wonder we’re losing this war._

_Yeah…wait, are we losing?_

_Fuck, I dunno.  Probably._

 

Tucker closes his eyes.

 

_Junior is better at spelling but I am better at coloring.  That is because I am a human and not a dog._

_Caboose!  Don’t call my kid a dog._

_Well don’t call your dog a kid!  Only weird people do that.  And then they put them in sweaters!  You better not ever put Junior in a sweater.  You cannot even knit._

 

He can’t feel his fingers, or his hands, or his arms.  All he feels is a great, persistent ache, burning pressure beneath his bones like a coal fire.  He’s sure that’s not good.  He’s sure it doesn’t matter.

His muscles are going to tear.  They’re stretching like taffy.  He’s going to rip apart-

 

_Tucker Tucker Tucker, we got it!  We got the box!_

_Holy shit, seriously?  Church, I thought you said there was no way we’d get that crate over here with Sheila busted._

_Fuck man, that’s what I thought too, but look at this!_

**_Holy shit!_ **

_I know!  I guess when you remove the brain, you’ve got extra space for more muscle or somethin’._

_I am a strong person._

_Congratulations Caboose.  This marks the first day you actually did something right._

 

It hurts, it hurts, like a scream muffled behind a door, a slow, consuming sear, endless, endless, endless-

 

_Ah.  Ah, thanks, Tucker.  Gah.  You know, you and I have had our differences in the past…  I have called you stupid, you have called me stupid…I have tried to kill you…_

_Uh huh._

_But you know, at the end of the day, I like to think that you and I are actually-_

 

 

 

**It hurts.**

 

 

* * *

 

“First?  We’ll _mount the sides-”_

“Guys-”

“Then, when the enemies aren’t looking, we’ll sweep around back and bust on in, quick and easy!  If we’re quiet about it, nobody will even know that we got down and dirty inside their ranks until we’ve already taken half of them out!”

“Donut, for fucks’ sake, can you _once in your life-_ ”

“ _Guys,_ uh-”

“No no no, that ain’t gonna work!  First of all, there’s no finesse!  No pizzazz!”

“Sarge, I beg to differ!”

“Fucking _good,_ pizzazz is what usually gets us murdered!”

“Grif, that you’re still standin’ here before me means we haven’t pizzazzed _enough._ ”

“ _Hey, assholes!_ ”  Grif, Sarge and Donut turn to stare at Simmons, who coughs.  “…and Sarge.  I just thought you might like to know that Wash already left.”

“What?!”  Grif whirls on Bitters.  “I told you to keep an eye out!”

“Oh yeah, I did.  He’s gone.  I absolutely saw it.”

 _“Bitters,”_ Grif growls.

“What was I gonna do, get in his way?  Besides, Smith went with him.  They’re just going to watch the mercs set up defenses.”

“Right.  The guy who would literally storm the place alone plus the guy whose captain got shot are just plain _scouting_ while they wait for us.”

Bitters stares blankly before tipping his head back and sighing.  “Okay _fine,_ they’re probably trying to sneak in.”

Grif gestures sharply.  “ _Thank_ you.”  With a grumble Bitters begins picking his way down the unstable slope, Grif not far behind.

“Uh, Grif?  _Grif._ ”  Simmons scurries to catch up, and he hears Donut and Sarge falling in behind them, still bickering about a possible infiltration plan.  “Where are we going?  We don’t have a plan!  Or Carolina!  Or literally anything to keep us from dying!”

“Since when has that stopped us from doing anything?”

Simmons grabs for his shoulder.  “Grif-”

He doesn’t expect Grif to stop.  Then again, he doesn’t expect Grif to whirl around and slap his hand away either; his helmet doesn’t betray his expression but Simmons knows the weight of that silence, and he knows Sarge and Donut feel it too because they suddenly stop arguing behind them and likewise come to a halt.

“Simmons, you’ve been digging your heels in this whole mission.  Believe me, normally I’d be right with you on it, but we don’t have _time._   So is there something you wanna say?”

Simmons shifts his weight.  He cranes his neck to see Bitters stopped a little further down the path, waiting.  No sign of Wash.

He scrapes his teeth over his lip before he rips the bandaid off.  “I think Tucker’s already dead.”

Donut inhales sharply behind them.

Grif, to his credit, doesn’t even hesitate.  “Why?”

“I think the second they knew we were out here, they probably killed him.”  Simmons shifts his weight before sending a glance over his shoulder at where Donut sounds like he’s trying not to cry.  “Sorry.  I think they wouldn’t want to risk giving us this temple if we managed to rescue him.  Banking on Tucker’s cooperation would be too big a risk…at least, it would be for Locus.  That’s what I think.”

Donut sniffles.  “So you- you think by throwing my helmet in there-”

Simmons looks down toward Grif’s knees so he can miss the way Donut’s face crumples as he sobs.

“Can’t know that for sure,” Sarge says, low but considering.  “Still got Felix to account for.”

Simmons turns to him, rubbing his arm.  If Sarge says otherwise he might be able to believe it, but…  “You think he’d keep Tucker alive just for kicks?”

“I think he’s a sick son of a bitch who just might,” Sarge answers him grimly, though he doesn’t sound convinced.  “…but I’m also thinkin’ it’s a little late in the game for playing around.  Even for Felix.”

“Sarge!” Donut cries.  “You’re not _agreeing_ with this, are you?”

“Son, it ain’t wrong to hope for the best but plan for the worst.”

Donut glances frantically between them.  “But- maybe- maybe they’re keeping him alive to make sure we show up!  Or maybe that Hargrove guy doesn’t want him dead!”

Simmons grimaces.  “They’re expecting us to try and charge in anyway, because they know Wash would push for it and we always do what Wash says.”  Simmons looks back at Grif.  “Grif.  I’m not saying this because I don’t care what happens to Tucker, I’m just- I care about what happens to this team.”  To _his_ team.  “Felix and Locus both against Wash, us against all those pirates?  We wouldn’t stand a chance.  If we rush in without Carolina or without waiting for any backup, we’re gonna die for nothing.”

Grif is absolutely still for nearly ten seconds before he shifts his weight.  “Simmons, you’re-”

But Simmons doesn’t find out what he is, because a sharp _crack_ sounds loud and _close_ and Bitters shouts as Grif drops like a stone.

 

* * *

 

Well.

 _That_ was easy.

It says something about how scattered the armies of Chorus really are that any soldier can just waltz into the special armory, that an injured and widely-recognized-as-bedridden captain in hospital scrubs can _also_ just wander right into the same armory, and that the only one who finds that odd is a hopeless, hapless lieutenant.

Valasquez should probably take care of Palomo, actually.  Two dead bodies are harder to deal with than one, but with the captain being _himself_ then it won’t be difficult to make it look like Caboose had just turned on a turret or something else equally stupid.

Still, it’s kind of disappointing.  The biggest damn heroes in the galaxy, and that’s all it takes to kill one of them.  Valasquez knew the Reds and Blues weren’t going to be impressive part of the equation but had always kind of hoped to be proven wrong.  It would be a nice change, not to be in the middle of a war anymore.

Valasquez stares at the captain on the ground, stares at the way blood seeps through his hospital shirt.  Right over the heart.  No coming back from that.  Though maybe another shot just to be on the safe-

Caboose’s eyes fly open and Valasquez screams.

“Hello!” yells Caboose right back, shoving himself up onto his hands.

“ _What the fuck!_ ”  Valasquez scrambles back.  “What the hell is this?!”

The captain sniffs and unsticks his bloody shirt from his chest.  “Pretty messy, I mean honestly, look at this-”

“I _shot_ you!”  Valasquez sputters.  “You stopped breathing!  I _watched you_ stop breathing!”

“We were playing the ‘hold your breath’ game!”  Caboose pushes himself back onto his feet with a wince and brushes himself off.  “I am the champion of that game.  See, because one time back in Blood Valley-”

Valasquez levels the pistol at Caboose’s head, teeth gritted tight.  “ _Shut.  Up._ ”  It’s just a minor setback.  This fool can still die and Felix will be none the wiser-

The cold press of a muzzle to the back of the skull is something of a game-changer, though.

“I think you’ll find that murdering my patient will be _very_ bad for your health,” Dr. Grey says sweetly, her voice peaking like birdsong.  Valasquez hesitates for just a moment before slowly lifting up the gun on a finger.  Dr. Grey is ruthless; she won’t hesitate to shoot.  “ _Thank_ you!” she chirps as she confiscates the pistol.  “Lieutenant Palomo, are you all right?  Great acting!”

“Um, actually, I really was terrified and I really was knocked out.”  Palomo rolls onto his knees and groans, sitting back on his heels.  “I just woke up a little while ago.”

“I don’t understand,” Valasquez says, feeling oddly weightless.  It’s over.  It’s all over.

“You have the Lieutenant there to thank for your failure!”

Palomo crows in possibly the most obnoxious way, “I _toollld_ on you.”

“He tattled,” Caboose confirms with a nod.  He strips off his red sticky shirt to reveal a streamlined kevlar vest and an emptying packet of blood.  “And then Dr. Grey played dress up with me and said that if I was good she would let me have the green Freelancer thing.”

“So you knew?”

“Of course not!  I didn’t know you would try to kill the Captain, I just thought foul play was a possibility!”  Dr. Grey beckons Palomo over to start a pat-down, at which he is very unskilled.  “But I can’t go around accusing people of treason, especially when I don’t know whether or not they have accomplices.  Thus!  A setup.”

“I could still have accomplices.”

“Oh it’s a possibility, but with the security team I have outside now?  I _very much_ doubt they’ll be running to your rescue.” 

“But how did you know I would-”

“Hush now!  I’m not going to insult your intelligence by explaining to you every little thing!”  Palomo finishes his exaggerated groping session and Dr. Grey spins Valasquez around to catch the full force of her smile.  “All you need to be concerned about now is yourself.  Wouldn’t you agree?”

She’s right.  Though there aren’t any additional Charon personnel in Armonia, even if there were the second an agent is compromised, they’re either assassinated or left for dead and Valasquez doesn’t have quite enough useful information to justify sending in a team with a hit order.  The only thing that matters is what happens here on out.

“Doctor Lady?  Can I have the healy thing now?”

“Captain,” Valasquez calls as part of that security team Grey had mentioned comes in to crowd around them both.  “It really wasn’t personal.  I’m just trying to survive, like anybody else.”

“Ah, yes, but,” Caboose says, picking through the equipment in the room, “see, when you kill people it’s supposed to be personal.  Because everybody is a person.”

“This is _war,_ ” Valasquez insists; the captain disappears around the door and there shouldn’t be any reason to _want_ him to understand.  He’s just an idiot, he’s just- he’s part of that crew of losers who’d crashed into their planet, who’d never _wanted_ to be part of this war, and only stayed on out of a sense of guilt.  What the fuck else _could_ they do?  It’s not like any of them cared!  It’s not like they could’ve-

“Let’s _go,_ ” one of the guards snaps and Valasquez recognizes her dimly as someone familiar.  They shared bunkspace in training.

 _All_ of the guards are familiar.  These are- these are the people who’ve fought together, who have lost friends and family and lovers during this long, arduous civil war against those rebel assholes.  All of it pointless, all of those sacrifices rendered _obsolete_ the moment the Sim Troopers showed up and forced everyone into a truce.

Why couldn’t they have just left?  Why couldn’t- why couldn’t they let the Federal Army win, like it was _supposed_ to?  “I was just doing what I had to- I’m just siding with the true neutral parties, I-”

“I’m gonna tell you something, Valasquez,” snaps the guard who is so familiar, turning on her heel and shouldering her rifle.  “Nobody cares.  Nobody cares about your reasons.  You’re just a fucking dick.”

“Amen,” shouts Palomo from inside the room.

“You’re a fucking dick, and you’re a coward.”

“Witness!”

“You betrayed your friends, and your colony, and the people who stopped us all from killing each other.”  The guard steps closer and Valasquez remembers, suddenly, _Natalia Pierce._   “You’re not the only one trying to survive.  You’re just one of the few who couldn’t cut the stress and the fear, so you ended up running to what _you_ believed was the stronger side with your tail between your legs.  But I’ve got news for you; that captain you just tried to shoot, and the other captain you threw under the bus?  Them, the Freelancers, the Reds, and _all of us_ are going to pull Charon down to its knees.  And if we’re feeling generous?  We’ll only shoot you in the head _once._ ”

“Preach it, but with some reservations because that was scary!”

“Now,” the guard steps back and gestures with her rifle, “ _march._ ”

 

* * *

 

_Got ‘em, go._

“This Agent Carolina, I need Kimball,” Carolina pants, “I need the general!  There’s a spy, we think their target-”

_“Carolina?  It’s been handled.”_

Carolina digs her heels in, grabbing for a nearby tree to stabilize her stumbling stop as she gasps.  Her suit whirs as it vents air so hot it warps the colors around them and she feels a chill down her spine as Church begins the task of cooling _her_ down.  “What?  Repeat transmission, what’s been handled?”

Kimball’s voice is stiff as a board.  _“Corporal Valasquez attempted to kill Captain Caboose.  The attempt was unsuccessful; the corporal’s currently in a holding cell with round the clock guard.”_

“And Caboose?”

_“He’s fine.”_

Church curses and the combined flood of their relief makes Carolina’s limbs go so weak she has to shove her arm against the tree to keep from falling over.  The aftermath of an adrenaline dump probably isn’t helping.

_“There’s an issue.  I need your help.”_

“Church?” Carolina asks.

_ETA five minutes._

They make it in four and a half because Carolina pushes herself.  Kimball is waiting, which she expected, but what she _hadn’t_ expected was for Caboose and Dr. Grey to likewise be in attendance, the former already in armor and the latter fiddling with an attachment slotting into his chestpiece.  “What the hell is this?” Carolina asks, but it’s hard to sound angrily demanding when you’re winded.  “Caboose, why are you in armor?”

“I’m coming with you to rescue Tucker!”

Church, thankfully, blinks to life at her shoulder and folds his little arms with as much attitude as she’s feeling right now.  “Uh, _hell no_ you’re not.”

“I don’t like it either,” Kimball says stiffly, “but we’re low on options.  We can’t  guarantee there aren’t any more Charon plants until we go through the staff lists of the entire army but we can’t leave Caboose unguarded when he’s clearly a target.”

Church waves his arms as Carolina straightens up.  “So _post a fucking guard!_   Seriously, you want to keep him out of danger so your idea of doing that is to send him with us?  _Into danger?”_

“Captain Caboose has already successfully slipped out once!”  Dr. Grey straightens up, patting Caboose’s helmeted head before gripping it tight.  “He’s surprisingly resourceful.  And _disobedient._ ”

“I’m sorry,” Caboose chirps, not sounding at all sorry.

Kimball leans her hands forward on the table.  “We’re short on time.  Dr. Grey thinks that so long as Caboose has a healing unit and stays out of trouble, he’ll be all right.  But you both need to get _out there_ , pronto.  If there are reinforcements on the way to where they’re holding Tucker, Wash and the others will get caught right in the middle.”

“We need your fastest bird and a handful of troops.”

Kimball nods.  “Already prepared.”

Carolina shifts her weight, facing Caboose.  “You need to stay.”

Caboose shifts his weight gingerly.  “Agent Carolina, see, I can’t.”

“You _can,_ and you will.  Dr. Grey can sedate you.”

“I can’t do that actually!”  Dr. Grey drums her fingers atop Caboose’s helmet, leaning an elbow on his shoulder.  “He’s still on both personal medication and pain relievers, so giving him a sedative is _par-tic-u-lar-ly_ dangerous.  Doesn’t mix well!  I would have to take him off of everything and give him no less than forty-eight hours before I can even consider it.”

“Okay enough of this shit,” Church announces loudly and Carolina can feel him pulling from her implants and preparing for transfer.  “This is so fucking stupid- Caboose I’m gonna _convince_ your ass to stay behind or my name’s not-” he vanishes into Caboose’s armor before winking back on at his shoulder, “We gotta take him with us.”

Carolina gapes.  “What the- _Church!_   You just said you’d convince him to stay!”

“Look, I say a lot of things.”

“How long were you even in there?!”

“ _Ehh…_ ”  Church wobbles his hand side to side.

“ _What does that mean?”_

“It means that Church is my best friend,” Caboose says proudly, puffing out his chest.  “And we are going to go rescue Tucker and it is going to be an adventure, and then Tucker will owe me _so many favors!_   I am going to make him make me pancakes for a _year_!”

Maybe if she tries very hard, Carolina won’t want to strangle literally every person in the room.

“Carolina,” says the person she wants to strangle the least, “we don’t have time.  You need to get moving.”

Carolina lifts her chin, breathing deep to try and keep calm.  “Is that an order, General?”

Kimball stares at her long and hard before nodding.  “It’s an order.  Take the Captain with you.”

Caboose bounces happily after her, their bootfalls thundering as they jog for the landing pad. 

“C.”  Epsilon appears at her shoulder, though his presence doesn’t reenter her mind.  “I’m gonna stay with Caboose.  I can overclock the healing unit and keep him more or less outta trouble.”

“And who’s going to help me with _my_ equipment?”

Epsilon points.  “I loaded up some dummy routines in case of emergency.  They can run your equipment for five seconds, but after that it’ll cut off.”

A few seconds is better than nothing at all.  “What did Caboose say to you?”

Church shrugs awkwardly.  “It’s what he didn’t say.”

“What does that _mean?_   Church,” and Carolina turns to face his avatar as Caboose catches up, wishing they could be having this conversation in the privacy of her own head instead of right there, for Caboose to hear.  “I just need to know one thing.”  She glances up at Caboose again, who seems to be either politely ignoring their conversation or completely spacing out.  “Is this about sentimentality or mission success?”

The way Church goes unnaturally still speaks volumes.  “Both.”

“Church-”

“If it’s bad-” he interrupts, and his avatar flickers a little at that.  Caboose reaches up a hand to cup it as if protecting a flame from the wind and Carolina wonders, a little, if she’s seeing part of what he did to change Church’s mind.  “If it’s bad, Wash’ll need Caboose there.  You and Caboose both.  Or we’re gonna lose him.”

It’s actually a good thing Church isn’t in her head right now.  Carolina doesn’t want him to know how close _she_ is to losing it too.  “You know that?  For sure?”

Church nods.

“Then we’d better get moving.”

 

* * *

 

Washington hears the crack of riflefire twenty feet up and immediately flattens himself to the ground, Andersmith following suit.  He lays there for a scant handful of milliseconds, the thought that if it was one of the Reds who just blew their cover then he really _will_ go insane flitting across his mind when Grif comes tumbling down.

The rest of the Reds follow suit with a cacophony of gunfire echoing overhead as Wash grabs for Grif to keep him from going over the much steeper cliff below.  “What the hell happened?!”

“Shit, I don’t know!”  Grif rolls over and pushes himself up to his knees, fumbling for his rifle.  Washington fishes it out of a bush and shoves it into his hands.  “One second we were talking and then I lost my footing and now there’s shooting!  _Jesus Christ!_ ”

“We need to move _now,_ ” Washington shouts, “before we get pinned!  C’mon, let’s go!” 

The pathway down the mossy cliffs is steep and unforgiving, and they have to deal with the guard from the temple now alerted and taking potshots as they scramble for cover, doing more bouncing than climbing as they make their way down.  Wash glances back to see Sarge forcing his helmet over Donut’s head and Simmons punching Grif in the back, and just past them, more pirates emerging from the jungle overhead and skidding down the hillside to their path.

The reinforcements.  “Shit,” Washington hisses, heartfelt and sharp.  They’re going to get surrounded if they keep going this way.  They need to shake their pursuit.

“Andersmith, your grenades!”  The lieutenant complies immediately and Washington spins, kicking up off the rocks to their left over the heads of the Reds behind him.  “Keep going!” he orders when Sarge turns.  He primes all of the grenades at once, shoving them into the dirt before whirling around and shoving at Donut.  “Go go go, hurry!”

The concussive force of the blast still slams him into Donut and Sarge hard enough to send all three of them tumbling down, but when Washington pushes himself back up he’s satisfied to see the path behind them crumbling down the mountainside, the entire shelf collapsing on into itself and leaving the pirates behind them scrambling for purchase.

“Holy shit, Wash,” Simmons exclaims as Washington clambers past them to once again take point.

“Don’t stop, find cover!  They know we’re here!”  Charon won’t give up their position holding the temple to come after them, at least not at first.  That won’t stop them from tossing snipers up onto the walls though, and now with the element of surprise gone there’s no other choice but a frontal assault.  Not to mention that if they know they’re _here,_ they might decide keeping Tucker alive is more trouble than it’s worth.  Their window of opportunity just shrank to the size of a postage stamp.  They need to be inside that temple _yesterday._

Easier said than done.  The path opens up into a small field with sparsely scattered rocks and trees.  Everyone manages to find cover, more or less, but they’re vulnerable to any pursuers coming up from behind and with less and less cover to move up-

 _“We should’ve waited for Carolina,”_ Simmons moans over the radio.

 _“Like we had a choice,”_ Grif snaps.

 _“They plowed right into us from behind!”_ Donut cries.

Andersmith is at his left.  Bitters to his right.  The Reds are scattered, Simmons with Sarge and Grif with Donut.  The mercs behind them will eventually find their way down the cliffs and every second they spend hiding here is another second Charon has to fortify their defenses and push them further away from the possibility of a rescue.

_The door slides open with a gust of cold air.  Orange, red, blue, aqua._

Sarge ducks and covers his head when a shot punches through his cover terrifyingly close to the top of his unarmored skull.  Simmons lunges, tries to throw himself over Sarge until he’s shouted down and pushed back into cover.  Five meters to the left Grif crouches unnaturally still, watching Donut flinch at every loud _crack_ of the sniper rifles from the temple.

_Tucker, no, no, what are you doing? No, don’t you dare, don’t you fucking dare, I’ll be right there, I’ll be-_

“Company,” Bitters calls from his back and Washington spins, battle rifle kicking against his shoulder as one pirate drops and the others duck around the cliff for cover.  Their position means they won’t get as much gunfire from the temple for fear of friendly fire, but they’re still fucking _stuck._   All Charon has to do is _flank_ them.

_I’m going to get Tucker.  I promise._

Something _clinks_ against the rocks nearby and Washington moves by rote, taking Bitters and Andersmith to the ground as he shouts, “Grenade!”  Rock blasts against their armor as the grenade takes out their cover and Washington frees his pistol from his thigh to pop a bullet through the visor of a merc who’d tried to take advantage of the confusion to advance on their position.  Bitters and Andersmith scramble up to new cover and Wash darts for Grif and Donut, pulling the latter up from where he’d fallen.  Which way is the temple?  Shit, his ears are still ringing-

_Focus._

Through the piercing shriek in his ears, the rain of stone and dust against his back, against the clatter of automatic weapons fire and the cacophony of chaos swallowing up the battlefield, a cool calm descends.

_My name is Agent Washington._

Breathe in, breathe out.

He’s trained for this.  Over and over.  He trained for this in boot camp, he was made Corporal before the rest of his squad, he once shot a Sangheili freefalling from a Pelican, midair, half a klick of distance between them.  He’s survived a spaceship crashing from orbit, _twice._

Mission objective: reach Tucker.

Washington can distract and eliminate enough hostiles for Sarge to lead the rest of the men inside.  Absolutely.  Whether or not he makes it inside isn’t important.  Felix and Locus are in there, but if Wash lets himself be distracted them then he’s already lost.  Deal with the problems in front of you.

_“Agent Washington, what are you doing?”_

The click of the magazine sliding into place sounds like a twenty-one gun salute.  “When I leave my cover, Charon will focus on me.  I want you all to concentrate your fire on the cliffs eastward and take out our pursuit.”

An orange armored hand presses hard against his chest to pin him against the rock.  Wash glances up into Grif’s visor.

“Wash,” Donut urges quietly at his other side.

“If anybody has another plan, speak up now.”

Wash watches Simmons relay the message to Sarge.  The old man’s eyes track over his team, over the lieutenants crouched behind them, then settle back onto Washington.  Wash knows; Sarge would do the same to get them out.  If it was Grif, if it was Simmons, if it was Donut in there, Sarge would do the same.

Tucker is one of his men.

Tucker’s his _family._

Washington isn’t going to fail him again.

 

* * *

 

“He’s an _idiot_ then!  Who fucking cares?!  We don’t need anybody’s magic bullshit to kill a couple of washed up Freelancers, their ragtag group of _morons_ and a population made up almost entirely of _disgruntled teenagers!_ ”

Locus’s growl is enough to set Felix’s teeth on edge.  “When are you going to notice that despite our best efforts, those washed up Freelancers and their friends are _still alive?_ ”

“Oh I’ve noticed.  I’ve noticed.  But we’re about to reduce their count by one.  I don’t care what Hargrove says.”

“Control wants this tower.”

“ _Control_ doesn’t have to deal with all of this bullshit down here!  _Control_ just has to fucking pay us!”  Felix shoves past Locus for the ramps leading underground.  He’ll take the fall later, he’s _not_ letting this go.  With the sound of riflefire in the cliffs to the south, the chances of there being more than just one or two annoyances has gone way up. 

Locus doesn’t want him to underestimate those idiots?  Fine, then he won’t.  So if nobody is underestimating anybody, it’s safe to assume there’s a chance they’ll get in and rescue their precious Captain Tucker.  So the logical course of action would be to slit his fucking throat, watch the life bleed out of his eyes with _extreme_ prejudice and move on with his fucking day already.

The vice grip Locus exercises on his armor is such that Felix considers, not for the first time, putting a knife into _his_ neck as well.  “If you don’t follow explicit orders, you will _void our contract._ ”

Felix turns slowly.

He hates it.  He hates Locus, he hates this perpetual arrangement they have where they do jobs, get them done well, get paid, rinse and repeat.  He hates that every time he’s tried to peel off and take his act solo, it hasn’t worked out for him, and he hates that he knows _why._

Felix jerks his shoulder from Locus’s hand.  “He doesn’t have to know it was us.”

Locus, to his credit, doesn’t grab for him again but Felix can see it in the stock-stillness of his helmet that he’s a hair away from snapping, too.  The increasingly loud bootfalls and riflefire echoing in the entrance to the ramps isn’t helping either of their tempers.

“I’ll fucking shoot him.  We could say he got caught in the crossfire trying to escape.”  When Locus doesn’t say anything Felix leans closer.  “ _Locus._   You know I’m right.  Better him dead than those assholes getting him back.”

“We don’t have total loyalty,” Locus mutters.  “Someone will inform Control of the discrepancy.”

“Then we’ll fucking shoot the _guards._ ”

“They’re our _men-”_

“They’re hired thugs!  _We’re_ hired thugs!”  They’re not getting into this now, this back-and-forth tried and tired _bullshit argument_ about the moral validity of what’s very clearly a profession devoid of ethics.  Locus is always harping on about _rules_ and _contracts_ and now that they’ve got additional troops Locus is so fixed on playing house that Felix honestly isn’t sure they’ll be leaving this job still partners.  Or both alive.  “Locus, so help me.  If Tucker doesn’t end up _dead-_ ”

It was the wrong thing to say.

Locus leans forward, quietly menacing, and Felix is reminded sharply of the man who’d walked back with purple blood spattered across his armor after that dressing down from their commanding officer.  “This is not about your vendetta,” Locus tells him lowly.  “Nor is this about your ego.”

The words burn and Felix’s lip curls.  “You _know_ I’m-”

“I will call Control,” Locus continues over him, “and until I convince our employer of the necessity of ending Captain Tucker’s life, you.  Will do.  Nothing.”

Felix stares into the green X of Locus’s helmet.  Twenty-seven blades on his person.  A pistol at his hip, battle rifle on his back.  The specs of his armor are more for speed and quick bursts of power than to take continual punishment, but in one brief second he could take a knife and jab it up under the Kevlar beneath Locus’s jaw, just under the helmet’s vacuum seal.  He’d bleed out in seconds.  If Felix is lucky.

“Ten minutes,” Felix answers, voice even.  There’s no love lost between them, but there _is_ a whole lot of money.  All they have to do is complete this job to their employer’s satisfaction.  That suit and their compensation is more than enough to set him up for the rest of his life.  He could have his own fucking _asteroid._   “You have ten minutes to convince that bald prick.”

“Don’t touch him, Felix,” Locus calls warningly at his back.

Felix raps his knuckles against the metal wall as he makes his way to the cell where they’d thrown Tucker.  The door opens and he barely twitches; still that fucking _moaning,_ over and over, like he’s some kind of animal.  Hell, maybe he is.  They’d chained up his busted arm, after all; he’s probably already crazy from the pain.  That sort of shit does stuff to you.

“…what, no hello?”  Felix heads for the table, stripping off his gauntlets and carefully laying them out.  This will be something to savor.  Maybe he’ll choke him to death; cut off his air, watch him struggle, give it back to him and then do it all over again.  That first moment, when he’d pressed down on Tucker’s chest during that call to Valasquez, oh.  That’d been wonderful.  The panic in his eyes.  He’s so unspoiled; never been honestly tortured before, but convinced he could withstand it because he probably got a few powerpoint presentations from his boyfriend.  Yeah, torturing Washington wouldn’t be half as fun as this.

Tucker’s pulse throbbing slower and slower against his fingers would definitely be the best.  Even if it’s a little lacking in the blood department, it’s just as satisfying in a completely different way.  Like the difference between buying fresh bread and making it yourself; there’s just _some_ thing about witnessing the outcome of a deed you perform with your own two hands.

Felix leans his shoulder against the wall, picking at his teeth and watching the way Tucker’s sweating brow furrows and twitches as he swims in and out of hazy consciousness.  Tucker should be awake for his own death.  He’ll have to make sure to take him down and splash some water on his face or something before he kills him.  Just thinking about it makes his fingers twitch and tingle.  He’s _so_ ready.  He’s so ready to watch Tucker’s body cooling on the ground, he’s so ready to see the look on those sim troopers’ idiotic faces when he kills them one by one and he’s _so.  Fucking.  Ready_ to be done with this job.

“You know, it’s a goddamn shame,” Felix murmurs.  He reaches out to brush a couple dreads behind Tucker’s ear and watches him flinch, listens to the half-crazed whine in the back of his throat when the movement pulls on his completely _ruined_ arm.  “I would’ve liked to fuck you first.  Well, I guess it takes a while for rigor mortis to set in.”

Here, far away from the sounds of battle and Locus’s _constant nagging,_ Felix finally feels settled.  This is what he was born to do.  A lifetime of experiences has cultivated him into a person bred to do one thing and one thing only:

Fucking _enjoy_ himself.

 

* * *

 

_Epsilon finds the nooks and crannies inside Caboose’s mind and seals them like molten resin spread over a broken vase._

_“Caboose,” he asks, more and less himself whenever he’s in here, so surrounded by memories and emotions about Alpha, Best Friend, Private Leonard L. Church that he wonders how there’s even room for anyone else, “how worried are you about Wash?”_

_“Oh, very worried.”  Caboose sits down next to him, legs dangling over the edge of the walkway.  The bottom floor of this section has long since crumbled into a pit of nothing.  Tiny miniature Freckleses lay down latticework to make it safe to walk.  “Very, very worried.”_

_“And Tucker?”_

_“Even more worried.”_

_Alpha’s armor paints the background of Caboose’s mind like the blue of a midday sky.  Epsilon looks and thinks he sees his own light shining from behind some clouds.  He and Alpha bleed together here, in Caboose’s memories, but there are separate parts.  Caboose knows that Alpha was never an eggplant or a floating eyeball or an alien god.  “I’m worried too.”_

_“I know.”  Caboose’s hand drops onto his head and pats, like he’s some kind of dog.  Epsilon shifts from Alpha blue to purple pink and shrinks.  “You’re pretty obvious.  Too used to worrying.”_

_“How come you always sound different in here?” Epsilon wonders aloud, childlike with wonder.  Human minds are so mysterious.  They’re all so intricate, even the one he-_

**_destroyed_ **

_“Ehhh.  There’s not as much getting in the way of words.”_

_“Your head **is** pretty empty.”  Epsilon shakes off Caboose’s hand and stands up, powder blue and tall, faceplate flickering a deep purple-black.  “We’re gonna hurt people, y’know.  Kill a bunch of them.  You’re okay with that?”_

_Caboose tilts his head up to watch Epsilon.  “Yup.  I will help.”_

_Epsilon cracks his knuckles.  “Suit yourself.”_

_Caboose perks as Epsilon rolls his shoulders, his neck, purple-black seeping over his armor like ink.  “You know, I like this color on you.”_

_The haze of **anger-hatred-hurt** is starting to paint the inside of Caboose’s mind.  Alpha’s skyblue color sets into the star-speckled onyx of night overhead and Epsilon wears Omega like a cloak but keeps himself set and rigid inside, ready to reign it in.  “I thought you were scared of O’Malley.”_

_“This isn’t O’Malley.  O’Malley’s angry because he’s afraid.”  Caboose pushes himself up and holds out his hand easily, letting Epsilon take it and paint him black, too.  “We’re angry because our friend got taken away.”_

_Epsilon sinks into Caboose’s senses, his eyes, his ears, feels the creak of armored gauntlets as he clenches their fists outside._

_“Like Tex.”_

_Epsilon reshapes himself to fit into the jagged edges of Caboose’s mind like a puzzle piece._

“Boots down in twenty seconds, we’re going in hot!”

_Michael Jesús Caboose, born [ERROR: MEMORY LOSS] years ago, with seventeen sisters scattered across the stars._

_“Oooh, is it time to be a mean girl?”_

“Caboose, what the hell are you doing?  -No, Epsilon, wait!”

_“Don’t worry, I’ve done this before.”_

_I’m not worried._

**_I trust you._ **

 

* * *

 

Washington shakes off Grif’s hand, vaults over their cover and presses the stock of his rifle to his shoulder.

There are no more snipers on the walls, no more soldiers in the doorway.

There are, instead, the three barrels of a freshly-erected AIE-486-H HMG beginning to spin.

Washington scrambles back and away for cover.  He won’t make it.  _Not gonna make it,_ “Son of a-”

Something whistles through the air and Washington throws himself down.  _Bomb,_ he thinks frantically, _air raid,_ a Pelican screams overhead, an air strike, someone’s trying to take out the temple whole, no, _Tucker-_

“Is that fucking _Caboose?!”_

The _BOOM_ of impact rattles him against the ground but not as hard as it should for a bomb; Washington vaults back over his cover and picks off three members of their pursuit as they suddenly rush forward.  “What the fuck is happening,” he shouts, and takes out a fourth before the remaining six turn tail and scramble back toward their own rocky cover. 

“Holy shit, don’t get up!” Grif yelps, grabbing Washington before he can fully stand and yanking him back down.  HMG fire mows down the clambering mercs behind them; four drop like ripped paper dolls, blood mucking up the dust beneath them, a fifth struggles to drag himself back behind cover before Carolina appears, moving like a tempest as she snaps one neck and kicks in another skull, _crunch crunch,_ like it’s nothing.

“Boss,” Washington shouts, “get down!”

Carolina is there at his side between two breaths and grabs his arm, hauls him up.  “Into the temple, now!  Come on!” 

The Reds are already jumping over cover, Andersmith is giving the loudest, most uncharacteristic _whoop_ of vicious joy Washington’s ever heard and he figures it out finally when he looks up to see _Caboose_ standing on the temple wall, HMG ripped from its mount and filling the temple interior with fire as empty shells clink across the metal behind him like a summer rainstorm.

“What,” Washington says as he follows after everyone, as he overtakes Grif and Donut and Simmons, “ _What,”_ he repeats as he grabs Sarge and yanks him out of the way only for the man to use him as a brace so he can unload a round of buckshot into the chest of an approaching merc.  “What is-  Why is-  _Caboose!_ ”

Washington watches as Caboose hefts the empty turret gun with _one hand_ and hurls it like a javelin into the chest of an approaching merc hard enough to cave in the soldier’s chestplate.  _Maine,_ Wash thinks hysterically, because that was _Maine,_ that was one-hundred-percent Maine all the way down to the bent knee and the follow-through somersault to the ground below.  Caboose is here and fighting and presumably okay, physically, but _why the hell_ is he here in the first place?  Why did Carolina bring him?  _Why is he here?_   He’s supposed to be-

_Tucker._

“Carolina,” Wash shouts, over the radio and aloud, “do you have visual on Felix and Locus?!”

 _“Engaged with Locus,”_ Carolina says tightly, _“no eyes on Felix.  Anybody?”_

_“Nope.”_

_“Where’s Captain Tucker?!  Is he downstairs?!  Don’t worry, I’ll save him!”_

_“Palomo?!  When did you get here?!”_

_“Captain Caboose!  Sir, are you all right?”_

“That fucker Felix is probably already downstairs,” Caboose says to his right and Washington is so startled by the crispness of his voice that he almost doesn’t notice that Caboose just _cursed._   Judging by the shocked silence on his radio, he’s not the only one.

When Caboose glances at him before turning and running for the nearest ramp it hits Washington, abruptly and unpleasantly, that he’s seen Caboose move like this before.  In a room full of Freelancer robots, glitched Tex copies, where Caboose dropped his shoulder and tossed them into the air like trash.

_Your name is Agent Washington._

Epsilon’s in Caboose’s mind.

And he’s deep enough that _he’s_ the one doing the talking.

 

* * *

 

“This is the last time I’m sticking my neck out for these stupid Blues,” Grif howls, shoving himself behind some stacked supply crates against the furious _rata-tat-tat_ of automatic weapons fire.  “I’m serious!  Next time they can just die!  Preferably without us knowing, so we don’t have to pretend to care!”

_“Oh that’s rich, coming from you.  You were giving me so much shit about even just **considering** the fact that Tucker’s probably dead right now!”_

“Oh my god!” Donut cries.  “My helmet!  Thank goodness!”  He turns on his amplifier and Grif has to drop his gun to cover his external mics when Donut shouts, “Hey Sarge, I found my helmet!  Come over here and get yours!”

“Donut!”  Grif grabs the nearest object he can reach and hits Donut with it, which happens to be Donut’s helmet.  “Don’t fucking yell for people to come over to us in the middle of a fight!”

“Don’t get snappy with me, mister!  I was yelling for Sarge to come here, not just anybody!”  Donut proceeds to pull off Sarge’s helmet and swap it with his own, sighing.  “Ugh, _so_ much better.  Red and lightish red together like that?  Yuck.  I looked like an off-brand Valentine’s Day card.”

“Where’s m’helmet?!” Sarge bellows from over their cover, jumping behind it to avoid the fresh hail of enemy fire.  “Ah, thar she blows.”

“What the hell is that accent?”

“What the hell is that accent, _sir!_ ”  Sarge yanks his helmet on and thumps the top of it solidly.  “I’m gonna miss the breeze through my hair.  Also, with my helmet off I was halfway to seeing the light go out of my enemy’s eyes as I kill ‘em.  So close!”

“All the other guys have their helmets on, _sir,_ how are you gonna see-”

“That’s why I said halfway, Grif!  Obviously!”

_“Wait, are you guys all together?  Am I the only one out here by myself?!”_

“First of all, this isn’t by choice,” Grif points out, “and second of all you’ve got the lieutenants out there with you, right?  Bitters?”

“ _Uhhh, no visual.  I did find a pretty sweet stack of guns though.  So that’s good.”_

_“Andersmith here, covering Palomo!  He was shot in the leg.”_

“Already?”  Grif sighs.  “What did I tell you?  _Blues.”_

_“It hurts so bad!”_

_“Wait, where’s Jensen?  She’s not here?  Why isn’t she here?  Why is my lieutenant the only lieutenant not here?!”_

_“All of you,”_ says Carolina, and it’s amazing how she manages to package all the force of a megaton bomb into three tightly growled little words, _“need to **shut the hell up** and get to work!  Keep these small fries off my back!”_

Small fries, she says.  Like any one of these chumps couldn’t wreck their shit in a one-on-one.  “Okay so, copy that, but I’d just like to point out that you’re asking us to do professional soldier things and historically that hasn’t worked out well for you.”

_“Grif!”_

 

* * *

 

Caboose moves like a force of nature.  Washington wants to grab him, dig his fingers into Caboose’s implants and somehow yank Epsilon screaming right out of his skull.  He’s accepted that Carolina is somehow completely comfortable hosting Epsilon right in her implants.  He’s accepted that Tucker and Caboose are fine with Epsilon occasionally hopping into theirs, for the sake of storage or to poke at a sleeping bear until it roars.  Washington isn’t _happy_ about any of those things, but he’s accepted it.

This isn’t acceptable.  Epsilon screwing himself so deep into Caboose’s brain- isn’t that what messed Caboose up in the first place?  Omega digging in his claws and refusing to let go, Tex and the Alpha fucking around in there to forcibly kick him out?  Washington’s eyes bore into the back of Caboose’s helmet like he can _see_ Epsilon in there because he has to know, he must _know_ that of all the people in their little group, Caboose is probably the one with the most reason to hate AIs.

“Caboose,” Washington asks urgently, “do you know where you’re going?”

“Nope,” says Caboose, as he ignores a right turn and takes a sharp left. 

Washington grits his teeth.  “Does _Epsilon_ know?”

Caboose comes to a screeching halt in the doorway of a room that smells like blood and sick even through the filters on their helmets.  Wash knocks right into his back but he hardly even moves, a veritable wall; Washington has to duck beneath his arm to see anything, and even then the room is so dimly lit and nondescript as the rest of the hallways that he can’t quite tell what he’s looking at.

Until he sees him.

Once, when Washington was still in the rank-and-file UNSC, his unit came across a torture scene.  It was a common occurrence during the war, though Washington had only seen it once before.  The Covenant didn’t usually take prisoners, after all, and didn’t bother wasting time torturing people either.  This sort of thing was usually the work of Insurgents.

She’d been an officer, and all her fingernails had been pulled off before they’d finally cut her throat and left her tied to a chair to bleed out.  Washington was the one who’d untied her and laid out her body, because he doesn’t get sick anymore after remembering a shattered mirror and a crying bully.  She still had her tags, at least, which was good because they’d also pulled out a fair amount of her teeth.  _Information,_ his commanding officer had tutted, pulling the tarp they’d managed to dig up over her face.  Evac would be by any minute to lift her body away.  _Went straight for the nails n’ teeth.  Didn’t bother with nothin’ else.  They was after info._

Looking at Tucker hanging there, trembling and wild-eyed, saliva dripping down his chin and shoulder misshapen and holding him at an agonizing slant, Washington thinks hysterically, _he’s still got his fingernails_ before Caboose finally _moves_ and Wash can get past him to reach for Tucker.

“Don’t even _breathe,_ assholes.”

Washington stops, two feet in the doorway and six feet away from Tucker, a scream clawing up his throat.  The barrel of the gun right against the Kevlar flap over his implants makes him want to twitch away and risk having his brains blown out.  Tucker is _right god damned there-_

“Weapons down.”  When Wash just tightens his grip on his rifle, Felix scoffs behind him.  “Washout, I’ve got a bead on Tucker too.  Drop it.”  The clatter of his and Caboose’s rifles on the ground is excruciatingly loud.  “…Blue boy.  You’d better not be who I think you are.”

Caboose glances helplessly at Washington before saying, in his carefully slow way, “Ummm…I ammmm not.”

“God damn it,” Felix sighs.  Something clinks behind Washington and his mind places it, with a flash of brown armor and a memory of _better figure out which side of the line you’re on, Wash_ , as the flat of a blade against armor.  “I should’ve known, I should’ve _fucking_ known.  It was just too good to be true.”

“Move that gun and I might let you leave this temple on your own two legs,” Washington says tightly. 

Felix gives a bark of laughter behind him.  “How about I just kill you?  I like that plan better.”

“Your plans haven’t been working out too well for you,” Wash mutters, eyes fixed on Tucker; does he know they’re here?  Did that bloody spittle just drop from gravity or did he breathe it out?  Jesus, he hasn’t said a _word,_ he’s probably out of his mind with pain and sometimes there’s just no coming back from that-  “I’m betting Hargrove wanted this facility working, and I’m betting Tucker didn’t give you assholes even an _inch_ of cooperation.  Am I right?”

“Well, yeah, but it still turned out okay.”  Felix digs the muzzle into Wash’s implant site and this time he _does_ flinch, a sharp pain stabbing into the base of his skull where the wires scrunch into his neck.  “Now I get to kill him in front of you idiots, and then kill you too.”

Wash glances at Caboose, who hasn’t moved since lifting his hands.  Not even that he hasn’t moved; he hasn’t even _fidgeted._   But he’s looking, between Wash and Felix, he’s glancing at Tucker, he’s taking everything in but not fidgeting because he’s here, present, able to help with Epsilon sunk deep into the gray matter of his brain.

He swallows down his nausea and glances down at the weapons, silent, at their feet.  “…What makes you think you can take out the four of us?”

“Please, Wash, I-” Felix pauses.  “ _Four?”_

“Oh yeah, four.”

The gun doesn’t lessen in pressure but Washington can feel the shift in tension as Felix’s attention divides and refocuses on Caboose.

“See there’s me and Agent Washington, that’s two.  And there’s also Church.”  Caboose taps his helmet.  “So that’s three.”

“Let me guess, the fourth is Tucker?”  Felix snorts.  “Love to break it to you, moron, he won’t be doing _shit_ to help you out.”

“Uh yeah, duh, that is why we’re here to rescue him.”

“Ah, Caboose,” Washington chokes out when Felix growls and digs the muzzle back into his implants again.  “Could you tell Felix who the fourth person is?”

“Oh right!  Yeah, of course.  Yes.”  Caboose pauses dramatically, probably for what he imagines is Washington’s benefit.  “…it’s Freckles.”

Felix freezes behind him and Washington can practically picture it, the way he’s tilting his head and listening for the _boom_ footsteps of the Mantis.  “…that thing is fucking blasted to pieces.  And you getting another one isn’t going to do shit for you down here.”

“Oh no, it’s the real Freckles.”

“Alright,” Felix intones flatly, “this has been hilarious, but I’m fucking bored now.”

“Agreed,” Wash says tightly.  “Freckles?”

He drops and springs forward, hands out, booted feet leaving the floor just before Freckles drones, “Firing main cannon,” and peppers Felix’s ankles and toes with fire.  Washington lands on his rifle, rolls, brings himself up to a knee with his rifle to bear to see Felix with the gun up and pointed at Caboose, knife arced over his head to throw at Tucker, not enough time to-

_“…Got ‘im.”_

“Epsilon,” Washington breathes, climbing to his feet.  “You have him?  For sure?”

_“Shit- his armor’s got some fucked up software.  Can’t keep him locked down for much longer.”_

Caboose hunches over next to him and Washington grabs his arm to pull him over to the wall.  Shit, _shit._   After all the moving around he’s done, Epsilon and that healing unit were probably the only things keeping him on his feet.  “Good boy, Freckles,” Caboose croaks as he reaches for the rifle, pulling it into his chest.

There’s a moment of indecision that paralyzes Wash; Tucker is still on the wall, tiny, weak sounds squeaking through his lips.  Caboose is curling in on himself, a hand pressed to his gut.  Felix is trembling, frozen, finger just barely twitching against the trigger trained now on nothing.

Wash takes all of two seconds to disarm Felix and press the handgun against his visor.

“Wh-Wash?”

“ _Tucker,_ ” Caboose cries; in that split second of inattention Felix suddenly moves and slams the butt of his palm against Washington’s visor.  _Keep your gun_ hisses over fifteen years of wartime experience, so Washington is firing the second his shoulder hits the ground though Felix is already gone.

The fury burning in his gut has Washington lurching after Felix before catching himself at the door.  No sign of him, shit, he got away _again_ -

Caboose is already back onto his feet, pulling at the cuffs at Tucker’s wrists and making him gasp in what has to be agony.  “Dammit Caboose, stop, hang on,” Epsilon snaps from Caboose’s suit instead of using his voice, thank god.  Suddenly the shackles release, Caboose catching Tucker with an arm around his chest as Washington abandons the pursuit for Felix in favor of taking Tucker off of Caboose.

It’s not until he actually says it, until the words, “I’ve got him,” pass his lips that it strikes Washington that he does.  He _does._   He has Tucker, not well but _alive_ in his arms, and that’s more than he can say for the majority of the friends he’s made in his lifetime.  His heart refuses to let him actually believe it, bracing itself against the inevitable chill of another dead soldier, another precious life lost, so the care he uses to check Tucker’s pulse is clinical.  Lay him down flat, don’t jostle his arm, check his airways, time his pulse.

When Tucker coughs and winces Washington hears, _I’ve got this under control, Wash,_ like a ghost at his shoulder.

_I got this._

“You- Tucker-”

_I’ll be okay._

For five seconds, Washington allows himself to _feel,_ and he bends over Tucker with his fists on his knees, shaking, trying to breathe, Caboose saying something he can’t quite make out beyond the timid worry in his tone.  He pulls in a breath, one, two, then straightens up and squares his shoulders.

Caboose is watching him with that considering headtilt of his, the one that precludes either complete understanding or utter _mis_ understanding.  He’s half-curled in on himself like he wasn’t before; Washington can hear the hum of the healing unit and locks his jaw hard against the tirade he’d love to throw at Epsilon.  The quicker they leave, the better.

The damage to his arm and shoulder is obvious, they’ll have to be careful when moving him.  Washington tries to see past all the cuts and bruises, the contusions, checking only for injuries that would hinder their escape.  He presses Tucker’s ribs gently and winces in sympathy when Tucker jerks with a sharp inhale.  That was a shift of bone, there’s definitely some broken.  He knows he should be relieved Tucker’s physical injuries aren’t worse, aren’t completely irreparable but he knows, intimately, that how he _got_ these wounds is the most grievous injury of all.

“Is he okay?” Caboose asks, voice strained in that way when someone’s trying not to breathe in too deeply.  Washington wants to shove him down onto the ground too, shout for him to _lay down_ and for his team to stop scaring him halfway to his grave.

Because he’s used to lying Washington tells him, “He’ll be fine.”

Against all likelihood, Tucker wakes the second Washington slips an arm under his shoulder to lever him up.  It could’ve been the pain, it could’ve been the warmth- shit, it was probably because Tucker thought Washington was Felix, come back to finish the job.  When his cracked lips part to let out a strangled gasp Wash freezes, finding Tucker’s hand and clutching it gently, pressing his fingers into his palm.  “ _Tucker,_ it’s all right.  It’s me, it’s Wash.  We’re getting you out of here.”

“Wh- what?” Tucker asks deliriously.  His eyes open and roll for a moment, so Wash leans forward until Tucker’s eyes focus on his face.  For a few seconds Washington’s heart sinks because he can see it in there, what he’s seen so many times, the gripping self-denial of a person who can’t believe in his own rescue.  Please, please, not from Tucker, Washington prays.  Tucker’s never been an optimist but he can’t, he _can’t_ believe they wouldn’t come for him, not after everything he’s done for everyone else, for _Wash,_ he _can’t-_

Tucker closes his eyes and the weight on Wash’s arm gets even heavier.  “Wh- what the fuck…took you so long?”

Caboose gives a little offended sniff and Washington almost cries.  _His team._   “Let’s just blame it on the Reds, Blue Team style,” Wash manages to say without his voice wobbling too much, and he redoubles his efforts to get Tucker up into his arms without hurting him.

“Wait, wait,” Tucker croaks, reaching feebly for Washington and he stills.  “Wash, I- oh god-”

“What, what is it?  Tucker!”  Shit, he’s struggling to breathe.  His ribs might be even worse than they look.  “Tucker, what are you talking about?” 

“W-Wash, wait, I just,” Tucker croaks, eyes screwed shut and lashes wet.  “Wash, I killed…I got him killed, I- I’m so sorry-”

Tucker sobs and gasps with pain at the jolt.  His ribs are probably more like a bag of glass shards than actual bones right now so Wash tries to hold him still and steady before his own convulsions pop a hole in his lung.  “ _Tucker,_ calm down, nobody’s dead.  Nobody who matters.”

“Don’t _say_ that-!”

Washington lowers Tucker back onto the floor.  “Okay.  Tucker, you need to calm down.  Who do you think you got killed?”

“Fucking-” Tucker screws his eyes shut against his tears, single useable hand grasping weakly at Wash’s armor, “ _Caboose,_ I got Caboose killed!  I was fucking stubborn and Felix- he- Valasquez _shot_ him-!”

“Oh my god, poor Caboose,” Caboose breathes.

It’s almost funny.  If Tucker wasn’t bleeding all over the floor, if Caboose wasn’t probably bleeding out into his armor, Wash would laugh.

Tucker turns his head blink tearfully at Caboose.  “…huh?  Who the fuck?”

“It is me!  Caboose.” 

“…Caboose?”

“Yes, yes, the guy Valasquez shot.  That is me.”

“… _What?_ ”

Washington sighs.  “Guys, please.”

The reality of it seems to finally catch up to him because Caboose stops short, hands out.  “ _Hold on._   If I am alive then who is dead?!”

Tucker gapes at Caboose.  “Fuck, am _I_ dead?”

“I can’t stand this.”  Epsilon appears in a wink of bright blue light.  “ _Tucker._ Caboose isn’t dead and neither are you, but we should get the fuck out of here before we _all_ croak.  Caboose, pick him up.”

“ _No,_ ” Wash interjects hotly, “I’m carrying him.  Caboose is already wounded and _you,_ Epsilon, I cannot _believe-”_

“Save the lecture for later!”  Epsilon gestures sharply at the door.  “Do you want Caboose on point if Felix comes back with like a fucking rocket launcher or something?!  Let’s get going already, let’s _go!_   Mission objective completed, c’mon!”

It shouldn’t be left like that, like it’s just a discussion to have when the time is more convenient but, Epsilon’s flippancy notwithstanding, he’s right.  Washington snaps opens a radio channel to report back in to Carolina as Caboose carefully gathers Tucker up with the kind of care Washington never sees from him. 

Washington helps fold Tucker’s arms over his stomach in the least painful way possible, the shift of his shoulder and Tucker’s punched-out little whimpers bitten tight behind his teeth making his mind go calm and steel-cold.  He hopes Felix comes back to try and finish the job.  Let him bring that fucking rocket launcher.  Wash’ll put a bullet right through his visor, a knife right into his throat.  And if he doesn’t kill Felix, he knows Caboose will. 

Tucker blinks up at Caboose and starts trembling, whispering, “Holy shit,” under his breath, so Washington shelves whatever vitriol he was going to throw at Epsilon for later. 

It’s by pure luck that he notices Tucker’s sword hilt in the corner.  It feels wrong clipped to his thigh, a weight that shouldn’t be there but as he passes Caboose and sees Tucker’s sword hand lift weakly to grip the edge of Caboose’s helmet and _shake,_ he thinks he can bear it, at least for a little while.

 

* * *

 

If she ever gets the chance, she’s going to tear that camo unit right out of Locus’s armor and beat him to death with it.  For the third time he’s disappeared from her immediate view, and she can’t find that telltale shimmer in all of this chaos.  Epsilon’s steady strategies and assessments are absent from her mind, her brain lacking that comforting crunch of mathematics humming in the background and making her feel like she’s constantly missing something _vitally_ important.

She cannot believe Epsilon goaded Caboose into _jumping_ from the Pelican.  If he didn’t pop every single stitch in his gut, she’ll eat her fucking helmet.

_“We’ve got Tucker.”_

_“Fucking **finally.** ”_

“Wash, status.”  Carolina surprises a soldier waiting behind cover and blows out both of his knees before she realizes Epsilon isn’t there to open the team channel for her and does it herself.  “Status?”

_“Tucker’s wounded but alive.  Serious injuries.  Caboose isn’t doing well either.  Boss, Felix got away from us.  He’s around here somewhere.”_

That makes both Felix and Locus unaccounted for, and Carolina does _not_ like that.  “We’re leaving, people!  Epsilon, drop a rendezvous point for us.”  A waypoint blips up onto her navigation just a moment later.  “Andersmith, Palomo, you two stay put, I’m coming to escort.”

_“Hey, are they **retreating?** ”_

Carolina vaults over a supply crate to see Charon soldiers indeed falling back, slinking behind cover before making for the rear gate.

 _“Holy shit, we chased them off?”_ Simmons pokes his head out of cover and Carolina finally spots him, up on one of the catwalks across the temple’s open atrium.

 _“Well shit, if I’da known they were gonna run I would’ve started chasin’ em sooner!”_   Thank goodness for Donut, who grabs the back of Sarge’s armor when he climbs over their cover with his shotgun held aloft in righteous indignation.

It seems too good to be true; Tucker safely recovered, Caboose still in one piece.  The spy rooted out, no fatal casualties on their rush, and an enemy surrendering a vital stronghold to a small handful of soldiers.  Why Charon had dug in so hard to defend the temple when they knew the enemy was coming, only to abandon it when by all rights, _they_ should’ve been the ones chasing out Carolina and her team?

Like he’s reading her mind, Wash mutters, _“Something’s not right.”_

“Everybody, _on you guard,_ ” she orders sharply.  Washington and Caboose, carrying Tucker, emerge from the hallways leading to the temple’s underground interior and Carolina takes in as much of Tucker’s state as she can from here.  He’s also completely unarmored, not good; if they get ambushed on the way out, as she suspects they will, both he and Caboose will be sitting ducks.

If would be best if she took Epsilon back for their escape, but if Caboose is in bad shape, without that healing unit running at full power, he could bleed out right into his suit.

“Shit,” she whispers, then raises her voice, “All right.  Wash, you’re on point.  Poke your head out, see if we’ve got anybody waiting for us.”

_“On it.”_

“Caboose, you find cover and _protect Tucker._   Donut, see if you can strip one of those bodies and get Tucker as armored up as possible.”

_“Gee Carolina, you always give me the **best** jobs!”_

“Grif, you and Bitters, after Wash.  I want that Pelican parked right outside as soon as possible.  Simmons, get to Palomo and Andersmith and stick with them until I get there.  I’m doing a sweep.”

There’s no way Felix and Locus are going to just _let_ them have both Tucker and the temple.  If there isn’t an ambush waiting for them outside, then-

 _“Uhhh, Carolina?  Can you come here?”_   Simmons’s voice isn’t usually what one would describe as strong but even considering his usual anxious timbre, Carolina can tell he’s shaking.  She follows Simmons’s ID tag and finds him crouched near Andersmith and a bloodied Palomo, calf stuffed up with biofoam and moaning pitifully.

“Can it, Lieutenant,” Carolina snaps.  “You’ll be fine.  Andersmith, can you get him up?”

“Yes ma’am.”

_“All clear out here, boss.  Just saw an enemy bogey take off to the north, bringing the Pelican to you now.”_

“Good.  Make it quick.”  Carolina narrows her eyes at Simmons.  “Tell me you didn’t call me over here on account of Palomo’s _bug bite._ ”

“It’s a _gunshot wound,_ ” Palomo complains.

“No,” Simmons tells her, and points just past her shoulder, “I called you over for that.”

The gleaming metal that makes up the temple is, against all reason, almost entirely spotless and devoid of any rust, weathering, moss, mold and filth despite being constantly open to the elements.  That’s why Carolina can only barely make out the white flashing symbols against the altar, not quite holographic projections but not displayed on a screen, either.  “What the hell is _that,_ ” she murmurs, creeping closer to see symbols flicking between each other.

The reason for Simmons’s terror becomes apparent when he responds shakily, “So, I’m not an expert on alien languages or anything but to me, that looks like a countdown.”

Ice stabs down Carolina’s spine.  “Everybody out the doors, on the double!  _Go!_ ”

Caboose knocks over an entire supply crate of weapons in his hurry, scattering rifles everywhere for Simmons, Andersmith and Palomo to trip over.  Carolina grabs Simmons by the arm and hauls him up, Andersmith throws Palomo over his shoulder and she can see Grif holding the Pelican just above the rocks.  Sarge leaps and claws his way up into the bay as Washington drops to a knee to help haul Donut inside.  Caboose makes the jump clear from the ground, Bitters grabs Palomo from Andersmith and drags him back and it’s then Carolina hears it, a _whine,_ a high-pitched shriek and a _pull_ that drags her feet across the dust.

Grif curses up a storm over the radio and Carolina shoves Andersmith up into the bay, leaping to grab Washington’s hand and screaming, “Go, go, go!”

The Pelican’s engines scream against the strain of fighting the temple’s pull but when they break free it’s with a great shudder that knocks all of them off of their feet.  Washington lunges for Caboose and Tucker, Sarge slams against the wall and Andersmith almost goes tumbling out of the still-open bay before Donut throws himself down onto his legs to stop him.

Carolina staggers over to slam the bay door closed, but not before she spots that same blinding white light from before gathering at the topmost tip of the temple spire.  The light is already bleeding in through the seams of the door as it closes, so she waits for the superheated shockwave of an explosion to ripple past them and knock them to the ground like a paper airplane.

She looks at Wash, who has himself braced against Caboose and Tucker, shoved into a corner like he’s going to protect them from an explosion.  When he picks up his head and meets her gaze she realizes she’d been standing there for almost half a minute, waiting for them to die.

_“Okay so, we’re not dead, right?”_

Carolina uncurls her aching fingers from the nearby seat harness.  “Doesn’t look like it.  Everybody brace, I’m opening the door.”

The light is gone, the landscape unchanged.  The temple still stands glimmering and rigid in the distance; the only difference is the neat, swirling hole in the clouds above.  Carolina watches as the clouds dissipate, but even when she leans out and cranes her neck she can’t see anything.

“That was a huge deal for ‘nothing happened,’” Simmons says.  “Maybe it punched a hole in the atmosphere?  Or destroyed the moon or something?”

“Don’t know,” Carolina murmurs.  She hates to leave it without even trying to investigate, but they have their priorities.  Carolina closes the door again, turns and marches right over to where Tucker is half-curled in Caboose’s lap.  “Epsilon, can you…?”

“No dice,” Epsilon mutters, perched delicately on Tucker’s folded broken arm.  “Without a suit I can’t get much info from his implants.  His pulse is steady but his arm- Carolina, it’s bad.”  His avatar flickers and Carolina sees, out of the corner of her eye, Washington lift his head slowly.  “I can try going in to see if-”

“ _Don’t.”_

The air of the cabin stills at the iciness of Wash’s tone.  Behind her, Carolina hears Donut’s conversation with Simmons and the lieutenants trail off.

Epsilon regards Washington carefully.  “Look, I know you’re mad, but I _asked_ and Caboose was fine with-”

“I don’t give a damn what Caboose was fine with.”  Washington shifts up onto a knee to take some of the weight of Tucker’s shoulders off of Caboose’s arm.  “His brain isn’t your playground.  You can’t just do whatever you want with him to suit your needs.  If you can’t get that, then it looks like a name isn’t the only trait you inherited.”

The cabin is silent as a tomb.

Sarge whistles.

_“See?  What’d I say? **Drama**.”_

 

* * *

 

_“Okay, Tucker?  I know it’s fuckin’ the surface of the sun outside, but you **have** to stop sleeping naked.”_

_“Dude, no, it’s hot.  If I even put on just a sock I’m gonna burst into flames, right fucking here in my bed.”_

_“No you won’t!  Also, this is a **wartime situation.**   You know that, right?  You remember the enemies we have?  Right across the goddamn canyon?”_

_“What, the **Reds?**   Please.  The rookie’ll probably shoot me before they do.”_

_“I mean- yeah, **probably,** but that’s kind of a more compelling reason for you to wear your shit!  It’s got temperature regulators-”_

_“They didn’t ship us the right size filters!  I’m not sleeping in my armor when it just ends up smelling like damp asscrack two hours in!”_

_“Tucker, gross.”_

 

Someone pushes his hair back.  Tucker wants to grab their wrist and like- break it, or, or do something even more violent.  Bite it really hard.  No, that could be sexy, Felix doesn’t get to have sexy-

“Tucker?”

There’s a hum.  Is the temple on?  Shit…did they figure out how to turn it on without him?  Is he doing it _anyway?_   “Nuh…no, fuck off…”

“Yeah, he sounds fine.”

Tucker opens his eyes, squinting.  “Church?  Jesus.  Dim the brights, dude…”  Oh god, everything hurts.  It doesn’t hurt like it did before but it _hurts,_ in a really cold way that makes him think about blood loss and lying half-dead in the middle of a canyon.  Church got a doctor for him then, too.  Okay, so it was _Doc_ but- actually no, he probably would’ve been better off without Doc.

When he opens his eyes again Church is further away, a nearly transparent flicker of blue over Caboose’s shoulder.

- _Caboose._

“Shit,” says Tucker as he remembers, as his voice trembles and as it all comes back to him.  The hand in his hair- that’s Wash’s, even has his glove off because the gauntlet catches in his dreds and Wash _knows_ that, how couldn’t he, with how much Tucker complains about it?  And that’s Caboose.  He’s not moving-  “Caboose?”

It takes too long which is _just the right_ amount of time before Caboose jerks and looks down at him, Tucker’s face reflected in the shiny orange of his visor.  “Ah, yes Tucker?”

Oh fuck.

 _Oh fuck_ he’s gonna cry.  Fuck this is so stupid, it’s just Caboose.  But he was so sure- it’s not like he hasn’t seen people die before, hasn’t seen them die because of _him._   He was right there when Locus shot- but this is _Caboose,_ and he’d heard it, and he-  “You,” Tucker sniffs, but the hiccup of a sob hurts too much for him to do it again so he closes his eyes and tries to calm himself down.  “How the fuck,” he wheezes, ignoring the little stabs in his chest.  It just hurts.  It’s fine, it just hurts, nothing feels too wrong yet.  Well, his arm, but in a really achey way instead of a wrong way.  Did they pop his shoulder back in? But his wrist-

“…stupid plan.”

“Ow ow ow ow fuck, Caboose, stop,” Tucker gasps, because Caboose is pulling him up and into his chest and curling over him with his own hiss of pain but shit, shit, that _hurts,_ “you idiot, ow-!”

“ _Stupid,_ stupid, _stupid_ Tucker.”

Wash murmurs something and tries to pull at Caboose’s arm, but it’s fine.  Tucker shifts until he can get the weight off his ribs, until he can sit in a way that isn’t any more painful than lying down in their arms was.  He wraps his free arm around Caboose’s neck and shit, it _hurts,_ it hurts…

It hurts.  “I know.  Stupid me.”

“So stupid.”

Wash’s arm comes up around Tucker’s back and he leans against it, gratefully.  “Okay, okay.  I get it.”

“ _Stupid._ ”

“Alright.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> super mild season 15 spoilers at the very, veryyyy end

It’s the longest plane ride of Wash’s life.

Well, no it isn’t, not really, but it sure as hell feels like it. Somewhere within the first hour back, after Tucker and Caboose had both drifted off, after Carolina stopped pacing, after Epsilon had stopped glaring at him from across the Pelican, after the Reds’ bantering had dulled to comforting background noise, the adrenaline dump had hit, and hit hard. Wash had settled back against the wall, intending to—well, not  _sleep,_  but at least get his frazzled nerves under control, when he’d glanced for the millionth time at where Caboose and Tucker were leaning against each other and noticed that  _Caboose wasn’t breathing._

Wash had lunged forward to check his pulse so quickly that he’d startled them both awake: Caboose, who frowned at him sleepily, and Tucker, who gasped and put his good arm up in front of his face in a reflexive way that made Wash feel proud and furious and  _awful_  all at once.

He can’t relax after that, not even after they both fall asleep again. Instead, he inches closer to Tucker and Caboose and carefully pulls Tucker against his own shoulder to take the weight off Caboose. Caboose is still close enough to touch and that’s vital because it means Wash can make sure he’s still breathing, which he does, often.

“Jesus Christ,” Epsilon finally snaps, after the fifth time Wash reaches across Tucker to press his fingers to Caboose’s wrist. “You’re gonna wake them  _both_  up— _again_ —if you keep doing that shit. Will you fucking relax already?”

“ _Don’t_  start,” Grif groans when Wash opens his mouth to reply furiously, so he doesn’t start, but only because Tucker has started to twitch and mutter against his shoulder.

Wash hesitates, unsure of if he should wake Tucker up or not, but then Tucker’s mumble turns into a desperate gasp and Wash panics and sort of pats at his leg until Tucker jerks awake and grabs at him, wild-eyed. His gaze locks on Caboose, and Wash catches his arm and squeezes. “Tucker, it’s  _okay_.”

Tucker looks at him then, eyes still fuzzy. Wash isn’t even entirely sure if he’s awake or not, but some of the immediate tension has left his body so Wash will take it. “It’s okay,” he says again. “Just—just rest. Everyone’s safe now.”

It makes something in his chest ache, the way that Tucker just kind of nods and slumps back against his side, because he  _believes_  Wash, he trusts him to keep them  _safe_ , him and Caboose. It floors Wash, fills him with equal parts reverence and guilt, because—

 _I should’ve protected them in the_ first _place._

Wash presses his head back into the wall, heart pounding. Tucker’s asleep again immediately, which is good because he needs to rest, but awful because those are  _nightmares_  he’s having, and  _what if_  that’s a regular thing now? What if they get so bad that he starts pacing the halls at night, trying to avoid sleep? What if Wash runs into him and Tucker makes some sort of joke about how at least Wash has a nightmare buddy now, and tries to laugh them off because he  _would_. What’s he dreaming about, anyway? What did Felix do to him? Half of those little cuts on his body—knife wounds, Wash  _knows_  they’re knife wounds—don’t even look as if they had a  _point_  beyond causing as much pain as possible, as if Felix was just  _playing_  with him—

Anger bubbles in his gut, hot and vicious. He tries to keep it from flooding out to his fingers and toes, from driving him to needless action, but now he can’t stop imagining how Tucker got every single cut and bruise and broken bone, how his  _hair_ —Wash can’t stop looking at Tucker’s hair, and the way his normally neat dreads look frizzy and frazzled as if someone had been pulling on them, as if someone had their fucking  _hands_  in Tuckers hair, dragged him around, pulled his neck until it  _hurt_ —

“Wash.”

Red. His vision is red and he has to blink around it in order to properly see Carolina squatting down beside him. She looks concerned and more than a little suspicious, which throws him for a minute—he isn’t fidgeting or muttering or doing anything to give away the anger thudding in his brain—before he remembers that Carolina’s seen him on the verge of a breakdown on more than one Pelican before.

“Wash, go take a break.” She jerks her head across the Pelican, to the corner farthest from where the Reds are clustered. A quiet, dark, peaceful-looking corner, and one that’s entirely too far away from his team. “I’ll watch them.”

“I don’t need to take a break,” he says sharply. “I’m not even  _doing_  anything, Carolina. Just sitting here. Like we all are.”

“Wash.”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I’m—” she exhales, runs a hand through her hair. “You’re exhausted.”

“We’re  _all_  exhausted.” Wash slants a gaze pointedly at Tucker and Caboose. “ _They’re_  exhausted. They’ve lost a lot of blood. I need to make sure they don’t fall too deeply asleep and don’t…I just need to watch them.”

“You don’t have to do that alone.”

He snorts. “That’s rich, coming from you.”

He almost expects Epsilon to pop back up and tell him off when he says that, but he doesn’t. Good. At any rate, Carolina doesn’t even take the bait, and now he feels like an asshole. “Why do you think I’m here, Wash?”

“Look, I….I  _can’t_  rest. I have to stay here with them. Okay? I…” Wash stops, mortified at the lump rising in his fault. “I—this is  _my fault._  I told them to come to me on that mission. If I’d just—just told them to hold position, and gone to  _them_ , then…”

He can’t finish, and Carolina sighs. “Oh, Wash.”

“I should’ve—I was in charge of that mission, and it was my job to look out for them. Instead, I almost got my…my…I almost got them killed. _Both_  of them. So.” He clears his throat. “So I’m going to sit here, and I’m going to make sure Caboose is still breathing, and make sure Tucker doesn’t move so much he punctures a lung."

Instead of walking away, like she  _should be,_  Carolina heaves another sigh and sits cross-legged in front of him. After a moment’s pause, she pulls Caboose’s wrist into her lap, pressing her fingers carefully into his pulse point. “For the record, Wash…that mission you were in charge of? Had a mole right there in the middle of it.”

“So?”

“ _So_ ,” Carolina says, “don’t be too hard on yourself.”

He raises his eyebrows a little, and she shakes her head stubbornly. “Don’t look at me like that.”

Tucker mumbles a little and Wash tenses, but Tucker merely turns a little more into him, hair falling across his face. Wash lets out a breath, reaching up a hand to tuck his dreads back behind his ear. “Still,” he says softly. He can’t look at Carolina. “ _Still_.”

* * *

 

Epsilon isn’t tired.

He  _should_  be. He should be  _more_  than ready to log off, after the world’s  _longest_  fucking day, full of rescue missions and tense waiting rooms while Dr. Grey operated on Caboose’s stomach (again) and Tucker’s arm and ribs and who the fuck knew what else. Carolina and Washington both debriefed with Kimball and then Carolina went to “personally see to it” that Valasquez was secured to her satisfaction (Epsilon privately thought that this was just so Carolina could stalk impressively outside of the cell for a while, but he sure as shit wasn’t gonna complain). He’s been tense and on edge all goddamn day, because Tucker’s a mess and Caboose hates hospitals and Wash is making such a  _point_  out of ignoring him.

So, Epsilon should be relieved when the exhaustion hits Carolina and she finally,  _finally_ , strips off her armor and goes the fuck to sleep. She’s actually out, too, not just pretending, flopped down spread eagle on her cot. Epsilon should log off too, decompress a bit so they can be ready for tomorrow’s next adventure, but.

But.

He can’t stop wondering how much of the blood on that fucking torture dungeon’s floor was Tucker’s.

It’s  _stupid_ , because Tucker isn’t even in that room anymore. He’s in the infirmary with Caboose, and they’re  _fine_ , and there’s no reason to think of the radio tower and the way Tucker had gasped when Felix buried that knife in his gut because it had hurt,  _holy fucking Christ Church this stings like a bitch,_   _stop fucking screaming and get your ass in that tower,_  and there’s no reason to think about Wash’s hands slick with Caboose’s blood as he’d pressed them into the wound in his gut and looked up at Carolina and Epsilon and told them with a hysterical cadence to his voice that Tucker was  _gone_  and Caboose was in critical condition, and for a moment, Epsilon had thought—he’d  _thought—_

Stop. He has to  _stop_.

Epsilon curls up in the part of Carolina’s brain that’s swirled with shades of red and blue, the part that’s walled off with columns of stone, but soft and velvet with affection on the inside. Curls up and tries to remind himself that he doesn’t _need_  to breathe or still his racing heart, because he has no lungs and he has no heart and besides it’s—it’s fine now.  _They’re_  fine. The idiot and the moron are safe and so is he, wrapped up inside the little stone fortress of Carolina’s mind. He doesn’t need to do this part, the part where he wonders what would’ve happened if Wash had been right, if he’d sunk too deep into Caboose’s mind, or if they’d turned right instead of left and found Tucker two minutes later, or if Locus’s camo unit had been too much for Carolina, if, if,  _if_ —

“If you’re so worried about them, we can go to the infirmary.”

Epsilon startles, both to hear Carolina’s voice and to realize she was awake. He’d been buried so deep in her brain that he hadn’t even felt her stirring, and now he feels guilty on top of everything else. This was the first time she’d slept in over twenty-four hours.

“It’s fine.” She’s sitting up now, stretching her arms above her head and glancing instinctually towards her shoulder where his avatar normally hovers. “C’mon. Let’s go see them.”

He curls up deeper in the plushy center of her brain, wraps the red and blue colors around himself even tighter. _ <I know they’re fine, Carolina. We were just _there, _remember? >_

He doesn’t need to see her face to know she’s rolling her eyes. “I’m aware.”

_< So, go back to bed. I’ll log off for a while or something, I didn’t mean—oh, for Christ’s sake.>_

She’s throwing the blanket aside, reaching for the fatigues neatly folded by her bed. “Stop sulking.”

 _< I’m not!>_ He is. He is so sulking.  _< Fine, if it’ll make you feel better, then we’ll go.>_

“Yes, Epsilon.” She finishes laces her boots, tucks the laces in neatly and stands. “It’ll make  _me_  feel better.”

_< Shut up.>_

The base is quiet as they walk, only a few errant soldiers wandering the halls. Epsilon recognizes the vacant, wide-eyed looks on their faces—he’s seen it too many times on Carolina, on all of them, hell, felt the same blank sort of terror deep in his own wires. The number of soldiers thins out even further as they reach the infirmary, but Carolina still creeps down the hallway like she’s on some sort of secret fucking mission. As if anyone is going to stop her from checking on them. Well, except maybe Dr. Grey, but Dr. Grey is nowhere to be seen.

Carolina eases the door open so quietly that none of them stir, not even Washington, who is still slouched in a visitor’s chair in between Caboose and Tucker’s bed. It makes Epsilon feel—well, he doesn’t know what it makes him feel to see Wash there, head lolling on his shoulder, hand inches away from his pistol. Relief, that someone else is just as much of a paranoid lunatic as he is, jealousy that this is Wash’s team more than it ever was Epsilon's, irritation, that he’s fucking sleeping here, still half in his armor.

Epsilon opts for irritation.  _< Jesus Christ, he’s _still _here? >_

Carolina’s thoughts brush against his own, amused.  _< Guess he wasn’t the only one who was worried.>_

_< Hey, fuck you, I wasn’t worried!>_

But it uncoils something inside of him nonetheless to see them like this, Caboose and Tucker and even Wash, sleeping and thankfully, blessedly, alive.

Carolina shuts the door carefully behind her and steps further into the room, gliding across the floor until she’s standing between both of their beds.  _< They’re alright.>_

 _< Yeah, I can _see _that, thanks C. >_

Now that they’re here, he feels kind of silly, and more than a little creepy, watching them sleep. Okay. It’s fine, he got it out of his system, and they can go now—

“Church?”

They both wince at Caboose’s whisper, loud enough to wake the fucking dead, as usual. Carolina shoots a glance at Tucker and Wash before moving swiftly to the foot of Caboose’s bed. “It’s me, Caboose. Carolina. And Church,” she adds as an afterthought, and Epsilon mimes rolling his eyes so she can feel it.

“Please tell Church we are all okay and not dying.”  Caboose pauses.  “Yet.”

Carolina pauses, startled, before bringing a hand up to cover her smile. “You hear that, Church?”

 _< Oh, well, isn’t he clever,>_ Epsilon says sarcastically.  _< Tell him to go back to sleep, _Jesus _. >_

Caboose pats the edge of his bed, and Epsilon tries to hide his surprise when Carolina sits on the edge of it. “Agent Carolina, it is just—just so nice of you and Church to come here, but you don’t have to be worried.”

 _< We weren’t worried,>_ Epsilon grumps.  _< C, you gotta tell him we weren’t worried, I’ll _never _hear the end of it— >_

“Because I am keeping watch.”

_< Oh, well thank God for that.>_

“Caboose,” Carolina says, after a pause. “You don’t have to keep watch. You should be sleeping.”

“Oh yeah probably,” Caboose agrees easily.  “Yeah, I think we should all be sleeping, but I’m not, and you’re not, and _Church_ is not, and you’re here instead so. I think that you’re worried, but you don’t need to be.”

That’s when Epsilon  _knows_  it’s time for him to power down, because—it actually makes him  _feel better,_  hearing Caboose talk like that. Like it’s just another day where he’s nothing more than just another irritating idiot.  Jesus Christ, he’s getting delirious.  _< Alright, let’s go,>_ he grumps at Carolina.  _< Caboose is on guard duty, so I guess we can consider shit handled.>_

He tries not to be too obvious about his relief when Carolina hesitates, then folds her legs up underneath her at the foot of Caboose’s bet. “Thanks, Caboose. Maybe we’ll stay and help you keep watch for just a little while.”

Epsilon sighs, looking around at them all: from Tucker, his broken arm folded in its cast across his chest, to Wash, slumped and exhausted in his chair, to Carolina’s hands, unlacing her boots. To Caboose, smiling at Carolina in a way that lets Epsilon know he’s looking right at him. At his team: his annoying, loud,  _infuriating_  team.

_< Alright, alright, fine. But only for a little while.>_

* * *

 

Sarge, despite all appearances, knows the people around him pretty well.  It’s the mark of a good leader, which Sarge undoubtedly is without question.  Thus he knows that Washington is far more likely to actually listen to what he has to say if he starts out genuine.  “Wash, c’mere son.”

The look Wash gives him is hollow and tired and full to the brim with dread.  Hrm.  He may have misjudged.  Instead he returns his attention to Caboose and Tucker just past the door, where Caboose is making his fourth attempt at writing his name on Tucker’s cast.  “…gonna make full recoveries?”

Wash still looks suspicious when Sarge glances at him out of the corner of his eye, but at least he relaxes a little when he faces his team again.  “That’s what Dr. Grey said.” 

“And she’d know,” Sarge muses.  “Don’t tell him I said nothin’ about it, but Aquaman ain’t  _too_  bad a partner in crime.  Woulda been a shame if he got benched.”

“He’s benched regardless, for now.”  The grim determination on Wash’s face is so pointlessly dramatic that even  _Sarge_  has to roll his eyes.

“Down, boy.”

“Ex-”  Flabbergasting Wash used to be a sport until he got accustomed to their strangeness, but it’s nice to know they can still manage it from time to time.  “Excuse me?  What did you just say?”

“You almost lost ‘em.”  Sarge lets his voice go low and grumbly as he watches Tucker snatch the marker from Caboose and sign it for him instead.  “Both of ‘em.  I get it.  You and me Wash, we’ve had wayyy too many close calls here.”

The air almost audibly leaves Washington’s sails.  “…yeah.”  He turns back to watch with Sarge as Caboose and Tucker squabble over the correct spelling of ‘Caboose.’  “Yeah.  Way too many.”

“It’s hard, knowin’ you can’t be everywhere and do everything for ‘em.  Almost like bein’ a parent.”

“Sort of.  I guess, yeah.”

“Not that I’d ever wish custody of  _Grif_  onto even my worst enemies.”

Wash’s laugh is faint and humorless, and Sarge knows he’s been read.  “Of course.”

“But it’s just that.”  Sarge doesn’t continue until Wash glances back over at him.  “You gotta know that they know what they’re doin’, even if they’re doin’ it badly.  Or not doin’ it at all.  That’s what a leader does; make ‘em decent enough to handle themselves.”

Wash bristles again.  “If this is about what I said on the Pelican-”

“You said a lot of things Wash, and not all of ‘em were wrong.”  Sarge makes a sound, his own soft exhale that’s not quite a sigh.  “I ain’t gonna tell you how to feel about the little glowworm, that’s your business.  I know you got some history.”

“To put it lightly,” Wash mutters.

“But don’t you think big blue over there’s got history of his own?”

Tucker has since given up trying to police Caboose and is now glaring up at the ceiling as Caboose scribbles all over his cast.  Wash stares and Sarge knows he’s trying to marry the image of Caboose scrawling flowers and hearts with the sight of him hurling an HMG, of him snarling  _that fucker Felix_.  “Epsilon  _used_  him, Sarge.”

“I figure he  _let_  himself get used.”  Sarge nudges him when he notices Washington making a fist and sure enough, he relaxes that too.  “Sure, he might make things more worse than better and sure, he might end up hospitalizin’ anybody he rescues-”

“Not helping, Sarge.”

“All I’m sayin’ is, don’t confuse him jumping into the fire for anything other than what it actually was.  And as I recall you were damn ready to do the same thing yourself.”

Wash opens his mouth, then closes it.  “It’s not the same.”

“I reckon it is.”

“I didn’t let someone take over my  _brain_  because I felt  _cornered._ ”

“He’d have joined that fight no matter what.”  Sarge gestures to Caboose and Tucker, bickering  _again_  over the marker.  “The way I see it, Sunspot did what he did just to make sure the odds were stacked up in favor of surviving.”

“You don’t understand,” Wash mutters, though he doesn’t sound as sure of it as he once was.  “Epsilon has a history of overstepping his bounds.”

The laugh startles Wash but Sarge just can’t help himself.  “You been listening, Washington?  All of us got nothin’  _but_  history with each other!  We’ve shot at each other, tried to kill one another, pulled each other outta the fire again and again.  Maybe we ain’t got your fancy Freelancer training or gadgets or your drama-”

“Hey-”

“But one thing we all got is our teams.”  Sarge pauses.  “And Grif.  Still, somehow, against all odds and wishes.”

“Okay, Sarge.  You can admit you were worried when he fell, if you want.”

“Worried he’d make it, maybe,” Sarge sniffs, offended.  Washington shakes his head and looks back to his team, but at least the lines in his face are a little softer than before.  Sarge risks giving him another nudge, and this time Washington lets himself be jostled with it.  “Look over there.  You got ‘em both, hale an’ whole.  Whatever your history with the sparkplug is, getting everybody back safe is something you  _both_  wanted.  Ain’t that right?”

Washington scowls, but Sarge knows he’s got him so he allows him his silence.  He claps Washington on the shoulder and turns away to go find his own team, hound Donut for scratching up his visor and all that.

“Hey, Sarge?”  Washington looks small in his power armor in front of the hospital door, eyes tired and expression fragile.  “I…I’ll never be able to thank you and the other Reds enough, I-”

“Oh, give it a rest, Wash,” Sarge groans, turning back away with a dismissive wave.  “It ain’t a hot day in hell if we’re not saving Blue Team’s hides.   _Again._ ”  Because for all his complaining and threats and personal vendettas, Sarge can admit –at least to himself- that they’re not all bad.  He sneaks a glance over his shoulder to see Wash smiling tiredly into the hospital room, chuckling and shaking his head about something Caboose probably said or did.

Yeah.  There are worse enemies to have.

* * *

 

As it turns out, recovering from getting tortured really, really sucks.

It’s not even the mess that Felix turned his arm into that sucks, or his broken ribs—although both of those things do suck, a  _lot_. It’s the goddamn cuts inside his mouth, and the way Donut has to come fix his dreads, and the bruise on his jaw. It’s the little things, that make it difficult to eat and sleep and even move, some days, the things that he can’t ignore no matter how much pain medicine they put him on.

“You never prepared me for this part,” Tucker grumps at Wash. He waits until they’ve been back for a week to say it and some of the guilt has left Wash’s expression, until he thinks Wash might be ready to take a joke.

Wash glances up from where he’s on his datapad on between his bed and Caboose’s. “Hmm? What part?”

“The recovering from torture part,” Tucker says. “You know, you went on and on about what would happen  _during_ , but not like. You know.  _After_.”

Apparently, he was wrong about Wash being able to realize that Tucker was joking, because guilt immediately clouds his expression. Caboose frowns at him from behind Wash’s back and Tucker sticks his tongue out at him when Wash isn’t looking before changing tracts. “It worked though. All that creepy shit you told Caboose and me.

“It did?”

Tucker nods. “Yeah dude. It, uh...it helped.”

It’s not a total lie—Wash’s RTI lecture  _had_  worked, although Tucker thinks it would’ve been more useful if he’d actually paid attention to what Wash was saying. Some of the guilt leaves Wash’s face, so he’ll count that as a victory.

But he knows that Wash still feels guilty, and so does Caboose, and so does Tucker and it’s fucked and every time the three of them get anywhere near talking about it—which Tucker is content to do exactly never, thanks—it all falls apart. The _I’m sorrys_  turn into  _no, I’m the one who should be sorry_  and then the  _thank yous_  turn into  _I’m the one who should be thanking you_  and Tucker can’t stand it because they’re not  _getting it._

They’re not getting that it was pure luck that saved Caboose, that Tucker still fucked  _up_ , that he came within a hair of getting his teammate killed because he was stupid, that every time he looks at Caboose or Wash or any of them he can barely  _breathe_  because what if it had gone the other way? What if they hadn’t found him, and it had all gone to shit, and Felix really had made Tucker watch while he killed them? Tucker can’t stop seeing it, can’t stop seeing  _Carolina falling with a thud, body hitting the ground next to Grif’s, her arm falling to the side to lay across his chest. It looks like they’re sleeping, tangled together, but their blood is pooling beneath their bodies and they’re not sleeping, no matter how intensely Tucker pretends they are. He watches as Carolina’s blood mixes with Grif’s, whose blood mixes with Simmons’, whose blood runs down the groove in the floors to mix with Donut’s and on and on and on until they’re everywhere he looks, the bodies of his stupid friends, his moronic friends who are all dead because of him—_

_Felix isn’t even pretending to care about turning the temple on anymore as he turns his gun on Wash and Tucker doesn’t care anymore either. Caboose is dead and his friends are dead and Wash is all that’s left of his team, and he tells Felix to bring him the fucking sword and he’ll turn it on, he’ll activate every fucking tower on this planet if he just wouldn’t, please, stop, I’ll do anything just don’t--_

_But Felix shoots Wash right through the center of his forehead and Tucker screams and screams and screams. His throat is raw and hoarse and he’s breaking, something in his head cracking right down the middle, and he barely notices Felix lunging for him until it’s too late, until the knife is already inside of his mouth, and Felix doesn’t have some sort of clamp to hold his tongue out which is stupid because who hasn’t seen_ The Mummy Returns? _Everyone’s seen that, even if it is a million years old, so Felix should know that if you try to cut someone’s tongue out without proper torture tools than it’s gonna be messy and bloody and his mouth is full of blood now; Felix has sunk the blade into his cheek and the blood is pouring into his mouth and he’s choking on it, he’s dying and all he can think is that at least he’ll see his friends again, if you believed in that sort of thing—_

_“Tucker, Tucker, Tucker!”_

_That’s Wash calling his name, which makes no sense because he can see Wash, dead on the floor in front of him, brains splattered out behind the wall, right next to Caboose, eyes open and lifeless, hands still pressed into the bloody wound in his torso—_

Valasquez killed Caboose at the capital, _something whispers, and he latches onto it. He wraps his hands around it, uses it to pull himself out of this hell—Caboose can’t be here, and Wash can’t be dead if he’s calling for him, which means—_

Tucker opens his eyes with a gasp. Wash and Caboose are there, bending over his hospital bed, because they’re okay, they’re fine, because Caboose has been healing right there beside him and Wash insists on sleeping in their hospital room every goddamn night. They’d both been sleeping, too, from the drowsy slant to their eyes, and Tucker feels even worse because he knows for a fact neither of them have been sleeping well and now he’s gone and woken them up. “Fuck,” Tucker gasps. He sits up in bed and rubs his hands over his face, then quickly clenches them into fists when he realizes they’re shaking. “Fuck, I’m—I’m sorry.”

 _For waking you up,_  he wants to clarify, but it’s the first time he’s managed to get the words out, so he lets them sit. Neither of them say anything, which isn’t that unusual for Wash but shocking for Caboose. Tucker works up the nerve to look at him and finds that Caboose is looking at him too, his eyes huge in the moonlight streaming in through their door. “Ah, well,” he says finally, “I guess that’s okay, Tucker. I wasn’t having a very good dream either.”

Which, Tucker isn’t really sure if that makes me feel better or worse, but then Wash sits down heavily on the edge of his bed. “Me neither.”

Tucker rolls his eyes, kicking out at him with his foot. “Dude, that’s nothing new.”

Caboose brightens. “Well, if we are all having bad dreams, then we should just all keep sharing a room! And then we can have a sleepover every night! And we can stay up and watch movies and—”

Tucker groans. “Caboose,  _that_  sounds like a goddamn nightmare if I ever heard one.”

“Well, excuse me, Tucker,” Caboose huffs, “but I don’t hear y _ou_  coming up with any good ideas, so—”

“ _I_  have an idea.”

They both turn to look at Wash, who is looking at them all  _fondly_  and shit. “I think,” Wash says, “that we’ve all earned a vacation.”

 The last time Caboose went on a vacation, it was with three of his sisters just before his deployment.

They’d driven up to the lake, just the four of them, and spend an entire week basking on its shores. It had been bright and sunny, and they’d played games and gone swimming and ate ice cream and those things were nice, but the nicest thing was being with his family.

Caboose is with his family now, too, and that’s nice, even if he’s not quite sure that this counts as a vacation. For one thing, they’re still inside Armonia’s base, huddled around what’s less of a majestic lake and more of a large pond in the farthest corner of the courtyard.

For another, Agent Washington won’t take off his armor.

Caboose can’t be certain, but he thinks that it’s been even longer since Wash had a vacation. Maybe he’s forgotten how they work. “Um, Agent Washington?”

Wash looks at him. He’s at least put his gun down, although it’s within arm’s reach. Caboose sighs. “I think you are vacationing wrong.”

Wash shifts around in that way he does when he’s feeling guilty about something. “I know, Caboose—I’m sorry, I wanted to get you guys a real vacation, but it’s just not safe outside the base—”

“Oh no!” Caboose interrupts enthusiastically. “Oh, no, this is  _wonderful_. It’s very quiet and the water is nice and cool and I am with one of my best friends. And Tucker,” Caboose adds as an afterthought.

Tucker snorts. He, in contrast to Wash, is hardly wearing anything, floating on his back in the pond. “Thanks, Caboose.”

Caboose makes a face at him, then turns back to Wash. “The vacation is very nice, but you are not vacationing  _right_. I am going to help you.”

“Help me with….oh, Caboose, no,” Wash protests, as Caboose reaches for his helmet. “I…one of us should keep our armor on.”

“Oh my god,” Tucker groans from the water. “Wash, we’re literally still  _inside the base_. There are soldiers in armor  _all over._  That’s why we’re  _here_. Get in the fucking water and relax. Unless you can’t swim?”

Wash winces as Tucker splashes over to him. “Tucker, be careful. You only just got your cast off- I’m not sure you should even be in the water at all—”

“This is part of my physical therapy regimen,” Tucker insists. “Water’s good for…healing the bones. Or something.”

He’s reached the shore where Wash is sitting, grabs one of his ankles, and starts popping the seals on his boot. Wash sputters indignantly as Tucker yanks it off his foot and chucks it across the clearing. “ _Tucker!”_

Caboose nods approvingly, reaching for Wash’s helmet again, and Wash sighs, batting them both away. “Alright, alright! I’ll take the armor off. Happy?”

“Yes,” Caboose and Tucker say in unison.

It takes approximately ten million years for Wash to take off all his armor, and Tucker sighs impatiently the whole time, until Caboose tells him to  _shut up_  and Tucker says  _make me_  so Caboose jumps into water to tackle him and it starts a water wrestling match that Caboose is winning, obviously, until Wash shrieks at them to be careful and finally speeds up the process of removing his armor to jump in after them.

“ _Honestly_ ,” he says, dragging Tucker away. “You two are going to be the death of me. You both just had surgery—”

Tucker rolls his eyes. “Wash, we’re  _fine_ —”

“Supposed to be taking it  _easy_ —”

“I always take it easy on Tucker, because I am so much stronger than him,” Caboose says, because it’s true, thank you, and also because he knows it’ll make Tucker sputter and lunge at him again, which it does. They all end up under the water and emerge to see the entirety of Red Team watching them.

“Oh, for god’s—what do you want?” Wash asks, exasperated. “Look, we are on  _vacation_ —”

“So are we,” Grif says, already half out of his armor. “Move over.”

“But—”

Grif cannonballs into the pond and Wash gives up, throwing his arms in the air. Caboose distinctly hears him mutter something about peace and quiet, but Agent Washington has a lot of mutters and this one is his secretly happy one.

Caboose rolls over onto his back in the water, arms out to the side so that he can float on his back. For a while, he just listens to the sounds of everyone talking and yelling and splashing around him. It’s nice and peaceful and makes something inside his head go still, which is one of the many things he has in common with Washington. He’s able to think best like this, surrounded by noise and activity and that warm glow that comes from being surrounded by friends.

His head bumps into something, and Caboose rolls over in the water to see that he’s collided with Tucker’s knee. Tucker is sitting on the banks of the pond, rubbing absently at his arm, and makes a face when he notices Caboose frowning at him. “Oh, it’s fine. Just a little sore. C’mon, get that look off your face before Wash sees and like, forbids us from doing anything fun ever again.”

Caboose wants to argue, if only on principle, but looking at Tucker’s arm reminds him of that way it had looked when they found him: hanging loosely out of his shoulder, swollen to nearly twice it’s normal size. He’d been very careful when he brought him onto the ship, but Tucker had still made those awful little noises and it makes Caboose’s stomach feel queasy to remember that, so he tears his eyes away and looks at Tucker’s face instead.

“Um, Tucker, I have been thinking—”

“Oh, boy—”

“And I have decided that you can work with me on future missions after all.”

Tucker gapes at him. “Huh?”

“I have a condition, though.”

“You. Have a condition. For me.”

“Yes,” Caboose says serenely, “and that condition is that I make the plans from now on.”

“Bullshit you make the plans! Okay, how’s  _this_  for a condition—we can still do missions together if you tell me when you’re fucking bleeding out  _in your goddamn armor_.”

When Caboose doesn’t respond right away, Tucker’s face grows smug and that’s just _annoying_ , so he huffs and Tucker huffs back. “Okay, Tucker. I will tell you I am bleeding if you do not try to trade places with people who bad guys are trying to take to bad places—”

Tucker snorts. “Yeah, right. Like I was gonna let that—”

He stops and it kind of makes Caboose stop too, and look at Tucker,  _really_  look at him. Tucker sighs, uncomfortable, but he reaches out and ruffles Caboose’s hair hard. “Just shut up, alright?”

There’s a new scar on his face now, temple to chin. Tucker has lots of new scars now, and Caboose wonders if he yelled when he got them. Caboose isn’t sure if he would’ve yelled himself, but he knows, he  _knows_ , if it had been him in Tucker’s place, that he wouldn’t have come back.

He grabs the hand that Tucker has in his hair and yanks Tucker in the water. Tucker yelps, but quiets when Caboose pulls him into a hug. “No more stupid plans,” he says, but he really means _thank you_  and when Tucker hugs him back briefly, he thinks that Tucker is saying it back.

Caboose lets go of Tucker to see Wash looking over at them, but then Grif tackles him and declares a game of chicken. Tucker climbs up onto Caboose’s shoulders and Donut climbs onto Grif’s, and Wash looks worried as he watches them, but he lets out a whoop when Tucker knocks Donut back into the pond and Caboose listens to Tucker’s laughter join in and thinks that although this isn’t  _quite_  a real vacation, it's enough.

It’s enough.

* * *

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Two years later…_

 

The thing with being a bunch of war heroes is that trying to find some peace and quiet in the after is damn near _impossible_.

 _Particularly_ on this tiny ass planet. _Particularly_ when the press won’t leave them alone. _Particularly_ when everyone wants them to help with something, or answer this, or give advice on that, and—

And quite honestly, Tucker is sick of the whole goddamn thing.

Which is how he finds himself clustered around the table, deep in the base of Armonia with the rest of his annoying friends, peering over a holographic map and trying to find…well. _Something_. Something, or some _where_ they could go and relax where no one would bother them for like, five minutes. It’s a task that’s proving to be easier said than done, and Tucker’s spirits are sinking further by the minute as they stare at the map.

“ _What if,_ ” Caboose says slowly, and Tucker groans, “we live in a space ship! We will float around in the sky and then no one will find us unless they have a space ship too, and when they float up to us and knock on our door we can say—and say—”

“I think big blue might be onto something,” Sarge interrupts, sitting up a little straighter. “We could configure the ship so that—”

_“No!”_

Tucker isn’t the only one who says it, and Sarge huffs, sinking back into his seat. “Well, suit your damn selves, then!”

“Okay,” Wash says, snapping his fingers. “Okay, I’ve got it—what if we went to stay in one of those alien temples for a while? No one would bother us there, right?”

“Genius,” Tucker breathes. He whacks Wash on the shoulder, beaming. “Fucking _genius!_ Oh man, that’s a great idea, those things are like, _empty!_ And I can totally open them with my sword! Maybe I can like, configure them so that no one else but us can get in.”

Simmons rolls his eyes. “ _Pretty_ sure it doesn’t work like that.”

“ _Pretty_ sure this is a stupid idea,” Grif says. He’d laid facedown on the floor when this discussion first began forty-five minutes ago, and hasn’t lifted his forehead off the ground since. “I mean, they’re just big, creepy marble rooms! No food, no beds—do they even have _bathrooms_ in them?”

“Grif,” Tucker says through gritted teeth, “we can’t use any of that stuff here _either_ because _no one will leave us alone!_ I mean, do you want to actually _eat food_ in the mess hall, or do you want to give your fifty billionth interview?”

Grif lifts his head slightly, cracks an eye at Tucker, and drops his head back down. “So what are our options?”

Tucker grins, turning his attention to the map. “Well, okay, we’ve got….”

He trails off, leaning closer to read the tiny, holographic names. The Temple of Procreation. The Temple of Endless Summer. The Temple of Interior Decorating. The Temple of High Celebration—

Wait.

“Whoa whoa whoa, hold on.” Simmons lets out a squawk of protest as Tucker elbows him aside, leaning in closer to the map. “Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. You’ve got to be _absolutely fucking shitting_ —”

“Tucker,” Carolina says, impatient. “What is it?”

“ _That_.” He jabs his finger at the map. “The Temple of High Celebration. Isn’t that where—”

“We had to come rescue your ass? _Yup_.”

“You’re not even looking at the map, _Grif_!”

“I don’t need to. Why would it literally be _anything_ else?”

“Yeah, but you don’t _know_ —”

“Santa,” Wash says loudly, “What exactly  _is_  the Temple of High Celebration?”

Santa materializes in the middle of their map, turning to face the temple in question. “The Temple of High Celebration. It was commonly used to ensure ideal weather conditions on days where important ceremonies were set to take place. When activated, it shoots a beam of light into the sky to scatter the clouds for miles, and bring blue skies to—”

“Wait,” Tucker says loudly, “wait, hold  _the fuck_ up. You’re telling me that we all almost died for a glorified fucking weather machine?! I thought I got _Caboose killed_ for a machine that makes the fucking _sun shine_ on people’s stupid wedding days?!”

“Well,” says Caboose, his voice thoughtful, “you can’t put a price on a sunny day.”

There are several long beats of silence, and then—

“The Temple of High Celebration,” Santa says serenely, “is an icon to the people of Chorus. It activates one of Chorus’s most time-honored traditions—”

Tucker isn’t the only one he groans, nor is he the first person to head to the door. Wash beats him there, and is shaking his head in a mixture of dismay and exasperation and, of course, guilt. “I’m sorry, Tucker. That...can't have been easy to hear.”

“Dude, it’s fine.” When Wash continues to watch him apprehensively, Tucker rolls his eyes, giving Wash’s shoulder a shove. “Stop. Look, at least I didn’t fuck and activate something that would’ve liked, blinded the entire planet.”

Wash gives him a look, but nods slowly. “If you’re sure—”

“I’m sure,” Tucker says firmly. “It’s cool, we’ll find somewhere else to live. Like, uh…”

“Like the moon,” Caboose says, his voice coming so close to Tucker’s ear that Tucker jumps.

“ _Jesus_ , Caboose! What the fuck have I told you about doing that?”

“To not do it.”

 _Honestly._ Tucker could fucking strangle him sometimes. “And also, we can’t live on the moon.”

“Don’t be stupid, Tucker,” Caboose says. “Of course we can.”

“Caboose, _what moon_?”

Caboose rolls his eyes. “The moon in the sky, Tucker.”

“I know, I meant--are Chorus’s moons even inhabitable?”

“I grew up on a moon.”

“ _I know,_ but not all moons are the same!”

“Yes they are.”

“No they _aren’t!_ Look, don’t you think we would’ve heard about if there were just people living on the moon?”

“Maybe they never tired.”

“But then they’d have to like, make it all…..livable and shit!”

“Terraforming,” Simmons says, poking his head out into the hallway from where the Reds are still arguing with Santa. “It’s called terraforming. It’s a process of grooming a new planet or moon for—”

“See?” Tucker says triumphantly. “They have to….do that nerd stuff before we can just live on the moon.”

“But Tucker, it will be so much fun to terracotta the moon!”

“It’s terraforming, Caboose,” Simmons says impatiently, “and it takes _hundreds_ of years—”

“ _What if_ …we work really, _really_ quickly—”

“I think,” Wash says loudly. “That living on the moon sounds like a wonderful idea.”

Tucker shoots him a murderous glare. “Oh, come on!”

Wash folds his arms across his chest. “You got a better idea?”

Tucker throws up his hands. “Oh, for fuck’s sake—you know what? Fine. Let’s go. Let’s go talk to Kimball and see what she says.”

“She will say that I am right,” Caboose says.

“Then I guess it looks like I’m stuck on a fucking moon with you assholes. Great.”

But as the rest of their team piles into the hallway, and the Reds spend five minutes arguing about the fastest way to Kimball’s office, and Carolina insists she can get them there without being spotted by a single soul, and Sarge gets them seen within three minutes, and Wash yells to run for it, and they sprint through the hallways of Armonia’s base—

Tucker thinks there are worse places to be stuck, than on a moon with his team.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS WE FINISHED THIS BITCH!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> thanks to everyone who came along for this ride. what started as an angst war prompt turned into this whole lovely collaborative fic and i (salt) have enjoyed every goddamn minute. THANK YOU FOR ALL THE COMMENTS, KUDOS, READS. MWUAH
> 
> xoxo,  
> salt n' egg
> 
> \---  
> SORRY ONE LAST THING!!!! [Mei](https://jomeimei421.tumblr.com) did this [INCREDIBLE ART](https://jomeimei421.tumblr.com/post/173361533308/hey-so-ive-been-going-through-my-list-of-shit-to) that is so great!!! LOOK AT THEY FACES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! FUC k


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